


Wonders Never Cease

by kbj1123



Series: Wonder Woman & Captain America [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Crossover Pairings, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, One True Pairing, Romantic Soulmates, Sexual Content, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:16:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 52
Words: 44,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbj1123/pseuds/kbj1123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A beautiful woman with seemingly no past moves into Steve Roger's apartment building.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Obviously, these are not my characters, although I tried to make them my own through their personalities and actions. If aspects or scenes from the story seem derivative, well then, please accept my apologies and perhaps make a constructive suggestion to improve. I’m new to genre writing. That being said, I have no rights to and receive no kind of payment for these characters. I am somewhat familiar with the comic books from which these characters originate, but to be honest, my information in this story mostly comes from the Avengers and Captain America movies, and Wikipedia. That information suited my needs in writing this, my VERY FIRST fanfiction. This story's rating is due to scenes containing sexual content in later chapters (things heat up relatively slowly,so if you're looking for that, be patient, I think the context of the building narrative is important). I hope you like it...heck, I hope people read it! Feedback is welcome, both positive and constructive, but please be kind. Love and light to all of you. I hope you enjoy this as much as I am enjoying writing it!

The first time they meet, it is because there is a small, grey leather sofa upended on its side, blocking off the stairwell that leads to his apartment. The door to the apartment opposite the stairs is open. There is a stack of boxes getting dragged slowly into that apartment. A young woman appears in the door threshold moments after the boxes slide out of his view. She is tall, slender, and wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. She frowns, staring at the sofa. He puts on his politest smile.

"Need a hand with that, ma'am?"

She looks up and smiles at him, and says something back, but he doesn't hear it, because he's looking at Helen of Troy. She has the brightest, bluest eyes he has ever seen. Her dark hair is pulled back. That smile. She's gesturing towards one end of the sofa, and he realizes the following:

-His jaw is hanging open.

-What she'd said was "thanks so much, can you grab that end, and I'll guide it in?"

-She's introduced herself. Diana.

-She's waiting for a response.

"Oh, right. Yeah. Sure thing."

He helps her move the sofa to the living room, and carries a few more boxes and bits of furniture inside, for good measure. It is at least an hour before he remembers, "oh I'm Steve, by the way. Sorry."

"No worries, and thanks!" She folds her arms and says, "Now, how shall I repay you, New Neighbor Steve?"

He looks down and hopes he isn't blushing. "Really, you don't need…"

"Hmm…" she continues. "Do you like pizza? Is there a good delivery place around here?"

He laughs, nervousness subsiding slightly. He helps move things around the apartment until the pizza arrives, and he stays well into the evening. Being around Diana is comfortable. By his third and her second slice of pizza, they are talking as if they'd known each other all their lives. Among other things, they discover that they both work for SHIELD. She is a librarian—the new archivist in charge of finding relevant files, and of researching whatever information or artifacts teams need before or during field work.

"Do you know your way around yet? I can show you the best way into headquarters," he offers, surprising himself. They make plans to have coffee at her place and go to work together in the morning.

It is May, the weather is perfect, and he is happy to walk, he says that morning, if she doesn't like the idea of a motorcycle.

"Why would I not like that?" Okay, another point in her favor.

He shivers slightly when she slides her arms around his waist from the back, despite the sun's warmth.


	2. Chapter 2

He sees her periodically throughout the day, when he's at HQ. Her name is Diana Prince, and she reports directly to Director Fury, due to the sensitive nature of the materials with which she works. Lately, people have been finding reasons to visit the usually-neglected "soft research" division. Men especially seem to come here often now, to visit what they've started calling "the stacks." The first time he overhears some young agents use that phrase, he warns them never to use it again, and that if it gets back to him, etc. etc., but too many men, of all ranks from all departments it seems, use it as a kind of code-word. "Let's go ogle the new archivist. Maybe we'll get her to help us with some 'soft research.'"

"Soft Research," otherwise known as the library, used to be a where Steve could sit at one of the long, heavy, wooden tables and read or draw alone, undisturbed. Now this place is a constant, low, hum of whispered conversation, male agents peering over upside-down reports, egging each other on to go flirt with Diana. Women come too, mostly to see what the big deal is, or check out competition, or also to ogle and flirt. But she treats everyone the same: professionally, warmly, but not familiarly. It would take effort on a person's part to dislike her. Steve's sketches, over the past few weeks, have an ongoing theme: a beautiful woman, wearing a neat dress and short heels, long hair pulled in a semi-neat bun.

The day Director Fury introduces her to the Avengers, she shakes hands with everyone but Steve. He gets that big, genuinely happy smile, "I already know Steve. He's the first person I see most mornings." Steve feels his body warm. He knows his neck and cheeks must be red. He knows Stark and Natasha are smirking, Bruce is clearly amused, judging by the low chuckle, and Thor simply stands, bows, and says, "Welcome, friend." "We're, uh, neighbors. We meet for a run and then breakfast before work in the mornings."

In fact the past three months, when he is home, during the lag time between missions, mornings have become Steve's favorite part of the day. At 05:00 sharp, they meet outside her apartment and run. He's never met anyone before who could keep up his pace, and when she forgets herself and doesn't hold back, it looks as if she isn't even touching the ground. Maybe she was some part of an experiment, too? She doesn't know why she's so fast—that's what she says anyway, and he believes her. In private, she's told him she remembers very little about her past. Even the best and brightest at SHIELD have been unable to help her. In fact, she was surprised she even got hired, having memories that span only the past few months. They assume there is trauma in her past—something her brain simply refuses to process, so the story of her life is locked away. She seems to take it all in stride, though. "They see something in me, I suppose. Anyway, all anyone ever has is one moment at a time," she tells him. "Each moment is an infinite universe, full of possibilities."

"Well when you finally do figure out who hurt you, you tell me. I'll get 'em."

"Get them? To do what with them?"

"Uh, I mean I'll get even with them. Or make them apologize or something.

She smiles, a little sadly. "IF I figure it out, and it was a person and not a group of persons, or if it was some act of nature, or if there was any trauma at all…"

"I guess what I mean is if you need anything, just let me know, Diana."

"Noted with gratitude," she replies. Oh, that smile.

Whatever part of her is locked down, he thinks, may eventually explain her wonderful strangeness. She shows sincere compassion toward everyone she meets, she has the ability to listen very deeply; yet at other times she can be naïve to the point of bluntness in conversation. She says exactly what she means, without affectation. And then there's her profound, intuitive understanding of combat strategy. He once took her sparring, thinking to show her some self-defense moves (okay, to show off); she flattened him in minutes. She could not explain where or when she learned to do that, either. "As I said, they must see some kind of potential in me, " she shrugs, offering her hand to help him stand up.

Over breakfast they watch the news, or read the Post, or just chat. He stands next to her at the sink while she washes and he dries dishes. She likes things neat and in their proper place. Sometimes, like this morning, they lose track of time, and she rushes him out of her apartment so she has time to get ready for work. She said, "I'll see you in forty minutes," and kissed him on the cheek before she closed the door behind him. No hesitation—she did it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

At headquarters, the other Avengers have not missed the fact that Steve's been spending a lot of time with Diana. Tony Stark tells an off-color joke about the new archivist. Steve realizes, now, that his hand has risen of its own accord, to touch the place she'd kissed, as Tony snickers behind his back.


	3. Chapter 3

For her part, Diana aches to go on missions. It was her understanding when she took this job that there would be movement toward becoming an agent. When she works with the combat trainers, it is often they who learn something, not she. Perhaps it comes naturally to her. She is sure she's being kept out of the field by Director Fury for a reason he's not given her. Being the SHIELD archivist and librarian is interesting work, but in her heart, she knows she needs to do more.

During meetings with Director Fury and Agent Coulson, they look serious and concerned. They look like there's something they are not telling her. She tells them the dreams are becoming more vivid. There are bullets, and she is diving deeper and deeper into the water. When she wakes up, she is still cold, and she knows she's been searching for something. One of the psychologists suggests the dreams are a metaphor for her memory loss, especially the parts where she finds the wreckage. Often lately, she tries to dig through the wreckage of a sunken fighter plane. An invisible force keeps pushing her back. It doesn't feel like a dream, or a metaphor. It feels real. On more than one occasion, when she's stood by the door and listened to the two men talk after she's been dismissed, the phrase "her awakening" is repeated. Their voices are uncertain, fearful, agitated.

Agent Coulson is always a sympathetic ear for when the dreams become too intense. "Sometimes," she tells him, "I wake up and realize I've torn my pillow to shreds."

"You're close friends with Cap, aren't you? Have you talked to him?"

"No," she replies. "I don't want him to worry about me too much." She feels a bit of warmth in her cheeks.

"That's probably wise for now," Phil reflects out loud. "But I don't want YOU to worry too much. I need you to promise to talk to me about what dreams you remember, and how you're reacting to them—especially if they make you emotional or act out in any way." She promises, and keeps her promise.

Meanwhile, they keep her busy with training and with research—the past, specific missions of the Avengers from the Second World War, through now. So much information; almost none of it redacted for her. She knows a lot about the world, which few others do, even in SHIELD. Sometimes she asks Steve about that time, and some of it seems more like a memory she's experienced, rather than a story she's heard or read about.

Then again, often a simple turn of phrase, a physical gesture, will seem familiar to her. She experiences so much déjà vu when they're together. She loves his stories though. She wishes she had more to share with him. She doesn't remember her father at all; she remembers being raised somewhere warm, tropical, by many women. How can she remember so much love, and yet not have any specific memories? "They'll come back when you're ready," he assures her, putting his hands over hers, across the kitchen table. He's patient with her. He doesn't push her for answers she cannot provide, even though she knows he must be frustrated.

Meeting his colleagues has opened up new friendships for her. When Natasha is in town, they often have lunch, go shopping. It's good to be close to another woman, and they are similar in interests and in disposition. And Natasha has so much more life experience it seems, especially with men. Natasha's jokes and innuendoes usually require quite a bit of explanation. "You'd think you've grown up in a convent, Diana." Diana shrugs. It wouldn't be an unreasonable explanation. She tells Natasha that it's simply difficult to relate to the world, sometimes. There's so much hatred. Even when the men who come to the library flirt and ask her out, there's this undertone of superiority and aggression. Aggression is for battle, but not in friendships.

"Well, there's no reason to completely exclude one or the other."

Diana looks at her blankly, not comprehending. Natasha rolls her eyes and laughs.

From Tony Stark's girlfriend Pepper, she is learning that work from inside of a building, knowledge and application, are vitally important. Pepper is so sure of her intrinsic worth. Her energy is strong and sweet, and she is very easy to talk to. Over drinks one night, Diana tells her,

"Steve hasn't been drawing in the library much this week. I miss him there. Do you think that's strange, since I see him most mornings and weekends anyway?" Pepper is usually wonderful for calmly explaining behavior and feelings.

Uncharacteristically unhelpfully, Pepper replies, "I think you have a little crush on Steve, sweetie."

"Why would I want to crush him? He is my friend."

Pepper makes a strange face. It doesn't bother Diana, really, since many people react that way to things she says. Pepper spends some time explaining the concept, but Diana is stuck on the phrasing. What a strange term for amicable emotions!

She feels most comfortable around Steve, though, and feels a mixture of enviousness and loneliness when he is away on missions. All through this fall, they have spent available Sundays from dawn until after dark together. He taught her about baseball this past spring, but she's misinterpreted even some of the most basic-sounding of rituals involving the sport. The costumed, oversized performers were simply bizarre. She wasn't sure why no one seemed to really stretch much at the seventh inning. Plus, when the "kissing camera landed its focus on her and Steve, she kissed him firmly on the cheek, and he turned extremely red.

"You gotta understand, Diana, people know who I am. This is gonna be all over the news."

"Are you embarrassed for me to kiss you? I'm so sorry—I won't do it anymore."

"Well yeah, I mean, NO, no...Y'know what, just don't worry about it. It'll blow over."

She has no idea why anyone at work made any mention of the incident at all the following Monday, when, as predicted by Steve, it shows up on several social networking websites, ESPN, CNN Sports, Fox News, and MSNBC; nor does she understand Tony Stark's insistence on posting a blown-up copy of the Times' picture, accompanied by the headline, "Captain America's Mystery Love," in the Avengers' meeting area. Steve's violent, emotional reaction to said picture seems disproportionate as well.

Nevertheless, now he is trying to teach her how to follow football. On warm days, sometimes they will go to the park and throw a football around for a while. They go to art museums and galleries. He's shown her the Captain America display at the Air and Space museum. Often though, they spend a good part of the day either in his apartment or hers, curled up on the couch, watching a ball game, enjoying being in one another's orbit. She likes leaning up against him, his arm around her shoulders. His body is warm. She feels accepted. Once, she fell asleep and slipped into his lap. She awoke with his hand on her head, absentmindedly stroking her hair. It felt…heavenly…and safe.

When they say good night, sometimes he'll kiss her, very lightly, on the forehead, the cheek, or lightly brush his lips against her own mouth if she catches him at the right moment. She wonders what it would be like to fight alongside him. In her dreams, the entire sea is on fire. She walks through fire and water unaffected, but she still cannot find what she is looking for. In the distance, voices beckon her to awake, awake.


	4. Chapter 4

She isn't like anyone he's ever met. He feels like a freak though, staring at her constantly—especially if Natasha or Thor catches him in the act. On the flight out to the North Sea for an assignment, Natasha peered over his shoulder to look at some sketches he'd absent-mindedly doodled on a piece of scrap paper: that now infamous (if clearly platonic) kiss.

"So, good date that day?"

"Wasn't a date."

"Have you taken her on a real date yet?"

"No! I mean, I don't see how that's any of your business!"

She smacked him in the head and said incredulously, "you HAVEN'T taken her on a real DATE?" What is WRONG with you?"

"Ow! Hey, knock it off! We're just very good friends."

But Natasha can see that he's blushing, and she laughs through her nose. "She is stunningly beautiful, and as it happens, she's also a beautiful human being. I really doubt she'll turn you down if you ask her out."

And there is the problem. He can't even initiate a real kiss. You'd think that not being a 90-pound asthmatic weakling would give him a little more self-assurance. Once he's parachuted into hostile territory though, and he's fighting off a half-dozen well-armed guards, he's all sureness, at ease in decision and action. Back home a few days later, he lays in bed thinking that actually, he'd probably be more confident if she attacked him. That leads him to some ideas that make it nearly impossible to look at her in the morning, and when she braces herself behind him on the motorcycle, he can feel his face go hot.


	5. Chapter 5

Director Fury has been having her read classified files regarding specific operations from the latter half of the Second World War, and asking her opinions. They involve an individual whose name has been redacted. This agent singly defeats entire Axis battalions. He or she extracts enemy secrets with ease. This person was instrumental in winning the war and brokering peace. And then this person disappeared. It wasn't Captain America, whose had been lost before this new agent's arrival, seemingly from out of nowhere. Diana does not understand why Director Fury seems to think she would have any particular insights about the events described in these files.

Almost every night, she is in battle, or the aftermath of battle surrounds her. Millions of voices scream: women, children. Sometimes she is swimming upwards, from deep in the ocean; other times, she swims through an ocean of flames. She sees the outline of what she is looking for. But then she's pulled back, and down, down, down into the depths she goes until she is on land again, and she can feel her mother's embrace as she is comforted and soothed. She cannot see her mother's face.

The files are read, the director is satisfied that she has no information to offer. She begins to organize the information for the Avengers team, as ordered.


	6. Chapter 6

It is the first Saturday of December, and they are at the Natural History Museum to see an exhibit called "Watery Depths: The History and Mythology of Our Oceans." Diana is staring at a small mural of mermaids floating through the columns of Atlantis. "This isn't right at all," she says with authority. Steve laughs. "No? Definitely part of the "mythology" part then?" But she isn't joking. She looks perturbed.

"It shouldn't even be dignified by calling it mythology. Naiads had legs, not scales. That's ridiculous. Plus, they rarely swam up as far as Atlantis. They had no reason to visit the ruins. Atlantis' ruins were just another reminder of yet another pointless, violent war among men. The architecture is inaccurate. And those fish—they didn't swim in that part of the Earth."

"Um, okay?" Steve is used to hearing Diana blurt out some pretty strange non-sequiters by now, but this is a good one even for her.

She places her hand on his arm. "Shh. I'm remembering…no, it's gone."

"I'm sorry." He gives her a sympathetic hug.

She looks up at him and smiles. She takes his hand and walks him over to the next item on display, as if nothing has happened.

Normally, he doesn't remember his dreams, but this one is vivid. After he hits the water, the world goes black. Then there is light, but he can't see. It's warm. He hears bits of muffled conversation between several women.

He remembers a voice, a feminine, ethereal voice, telling him incredible stories. In this dream, he sees a face, but it's blurred, as if through water. And he knows she is called "Princess." The beautiful voice that belongs to that blurred face tells him, "You're healing. We will send you home soon."

Scene suddenly changes. It is cold, and he is starting to float away. He can't move. "Princess's" hand is gently but forcibly pulled from his own. Freezing now, and getting dark. He knows she is lost to him. The last feeling he has before the cold overtakes him is of bereavement.

On the cusp of wakefulness and sleep, Steve knows that voice and face, but the surety of recognition vanishes by the time his senses register clearly the beeping alarm clock, the packed bag by the bedroom door.

When Diana greets him for their morning run, he hugs her so tightly, and buries his face in her hair, taking in her scent, her softness, her strength. He inhales as much of her as he possibly can.

"Steve, are you okay? Are you crying? Are you sad?" He doesn't know. But he goes out of his way to see her as much as possible that day, before he's deployed for the next two weeks. "I will be back the day before the Christmas party, and I am going to dance with you," he promises.

She grins. "Well that was easy and unprompted. Are you sure you're okay?"

7.

Each member of the team gets a different set of files. Thor and Steve have each been given a kind of mythology. For Thor, it is a familiar story, and he tells his colleagues that he has suspicions as to the reason and timing of the Avengers' homework. He goes to Asgard for confirmation. When he returns, he is confident, but does not divulge his insights. He spends quite a bit of time in private meetings with Coulson and Fury. When in the hallways, the three of them abruptly stop their conversation whenever Steve happens by. He periodically picks up phrases and words like "dormant memories," "awakened state." One particularly strange bit he's heard, by accident since it's none of his business, is "it could go smoothly, or she could react violently. 2000 years' worth of memories is a lot to process all at once," (Coulson's voice), and Thor's reply, "I will watch her carefully."

While deployed, Steve reads the same information as Thor's SHIELD file. He reads it, but it feels more like an old story—one he heard years ago but only remembers as the words on the page come to him. He has no idea why this is necessary information, or what it might be leading up to. It is about the daughter of Queen Hippolyta, the first child born past the dimension of Earth, roughly where the island of Lesbos would be. For three thousand years, the immortal Amazons lived there. The Amazons had been created around 1200 B.C. when the Greek goddesses drew forth the souls of all women who had been murdered by men. One soul was left behind: soul which originally belonged to the unborn daughter of the first woman murdered by a man, and reincarnated as Hippolyta. "This one must wait until it is time," the goddess Olympia instructed. Sometime during the first century, Hippolyta was instructed to mold some clay from the shores of their paradise, Themyscira, into the form of a baby girl. Six members of the Greek Pantheon then bonded the soul to the clay, giving it life. Each of the six also granted this child a gift: Demeter, great strength; Athena, wisdom and courage; Artemis, a hunter's heart, perfect aim, and a communion with animals; Aphrodite, intense beauty and a loving heart; Hestia, sisterhood with fire; Hermes, speed and the power of flight. The girl grew up surrounded by a legion of adoring sisters and mothers.

When she was a young woman, the gods decreed that the Amazons must send an emissary into Man's World. The World of Man's champion for peace, Captain America, had been lost to the oceans, and, according to this legend, the servants of Poseidon carried his broken body to Themyscira for healing.

"Oh, now I understand why I'm reading this," he thinks. "Saved by a mythological god. I guess that's as reasonable an explanation as any other one."

Healing, however, would take time—time the Earth did not have to spare. Queen Hippolyta ordered a contest to be held, but forbade Themyscira's beloved princess from participating. The girl disobeyed and did so anyway in disguise, easily winning the contest and being named the Amazon's champion. Before embarking on her mission, she was given an armored uniform, the Lasso of Truth, forged by Hephaestus himself. She was also given the Sandals of Hermes, which allowed her to instantly traverse great distances in seconds. She was called Wonder Woman.


	7. Chapter 7

It is the Thursday night before Christmas, and Steve has returned home from his assignment. It is very late—early Friday morning, actually. Diana hears his distinct footsteps as he carries his bag upstairs to his apartment. His left foot steps more heavily than the right. He must be carrying his load on the left. Or he has been injured. She fights back the urge to follow him upstairs to see if he's been hurt.

She does not see him Friday morning. Presumably, he is sleeping off his late night. She leaves him a message that she will meet him at that evening's party; she, Natasha, and Pepper have plans for the afternoon.

Specifically, when she divulged that she'd not yet thought about what to wear to the formal occasion, she'd been volunteered by her girlfriends to be something called a "Human Barbie Doll." They are spending the day shopping.

"Couture takes some time, dear," Pepper explains, as they sort through dresses at their fourth boutique. Natasha and Pepper find what they decree "perfect" simultaneously. It is deep red, ankle-length, and a Livia Firth original, upcycled from damaged gowns from the 1930's. It is sleeveless, and the satin skims and drapes Diana's body. It needs minimal tailoring, and Pepper slips the seamstress some money to get it done before 4 p.m. The rest of the afternoon involves finding shoes. They agree to share a professional make-up artist.

Apparently, spending an entire day with the ladies involves talking about things Diana has never really understood, aside from in a theoretical way. They talk a lot about sex, and Diana is made to understand that the discussion is for their ears only—no blurting out stuff to the guys. Pepper is mortified that Natasha feels it necessary to spell this out to their friend, but Diana says without even a hint of irony, "Thank you. I am glad you clarified that for me."

Diana is grateful for their assistance and company; she is unsure why they are making a fuss over her. They allude to things they will be doing with their escorts at the end of the evening. It's informative, but she isn't really sure what a formal party has to do with sex. She offers, "Oh, is this like the way animals make a show to their potential partners, to let them know it's time for them to mate?" They look at one another and fall over laughing.

In the hotel room at the site of the party, they drink champagne and help one another with dresses as the make-up artist takes turns with each woman. When Diana is dressed and made-up, Natasha says, "God. I might do you myself."

"Do what?"

Pepper shakes her head and tells Diana, "Never mind her. THE GUYS are going to be blown away."

Diana thinks better than to ask about tonight's weather. She knows Steve intends to walk her the few blocks home to their building tonight. The universe has been unusually quiet. The whole team will be there.


	8. Chapter 8

The team members stand in a semi-circle; Tony, in his designer tux, as always, holds court. There's a drink in his hand, and he is joking about women being late just as Pepper sidles next to him. "She'll be worth the wait," she smiles, winking at Steve. Steve's face goes hot, and Tony laughs at him. His laugh abruptly stops, though, and his face momentarily goes slack. He recovers quickly, though and says quietly, "Cap. Turn around."

And there she is, radiant as the sun itself, laughing with Agent Coulson about something Nick Fury has just said. When she sees the group, she and Agent Coulson walk over to them. She is on his arm. Thor, Bruce, and Tony make slight bows; Steve stands stock-still. Up close, she looks like a goddess, like one of the likenesses they saw together at the museum, come to life, or the young woman in the file he just read. Intense beauty doesn't cover it. The group is chatting and joking, though, friends at ease with one another. Diana has said something. Agent Coulson says something, she says something back and everyone laughs. She's looking at him, now. Did she ask him something? Oh, crap. He should say something. He feels a sharp elbow below his lower right rib. "Steve, dance with her," Natasha mutters under her breath. Oh. Right. "I believe you've promised me a dance, Captain Rogers, is what Diana just said a few seconds ago." Oh, I get it. Coulson's handing her off to me. "How long have I been standing here like an idiot," he wonders. "Yeah! I mean, yes! I mean, absolutely."

On the floor, he says, "I should warn you, I'm not very good at dancing."

"I have faith in you."

"And, uh, now that I have you here, I might not want to let anyone else dance with you."

She doesn't hesitate. She smiles up at him, looks him straight in the eyes. "I might be fine with that."

She's clearly the better dancer, but she matches him move for move, as if what was between them was liquid rather than flesh and fabric. Even their breath synchronizes. When she is close enough to him, he can't get a sense of where one of them ends, the other begins. To him, it feels as if there is only one complete dancer. When the musicians take a break and they stop dancing, he first notices a sense of emptiness, as if something's been cut from him. It hits him that while they danced, he thought of her as "his girl." But really, she isn't. She's perfect, too self-assured to belong to anyone. The second thing he notices is that people have been watching them. Tony pats him on the back and says "you guys should just get a room upstairs and get on with it, man." Diana is totally composed, already chatting with another partygoer. He, on the other hand, is left to blush by himself.

When the music resumes, Steve begrudgingly allows someone else to lead her onto the dance floor. He knows he really isn't "allowing" anything; Diana belongs to no one. She decides whose dance invitations to accept or decline: Coulson and Fury each get a turn. A well-known general and a couple of foreign dignitaries get a turn. He watches her move, and thinks maybe he's never really watched her before. It's Diana, his close friend, but now she's something else entirely. He understands what his men meant when they talked about their "angels" back home in the States. Did they feel like this about their girls? Wait, she's not his girl. She belongs to no one. It's his sad mantra for the night. He's starting to feel inexplicably miserable, except for when she is with him. Not long before midnight, he says, "If it's alright with you, let's get out of here before it gets too cold." It's a dumb excuse, but she consents.

Halfway home, Diana stops, and sits on a stoop to take off her shoes. "Sorry, they're pretty, but not comfortable." Then she hikes up her dress, and carefully rolls down and removes one stocking, then the other. He can't look away, even if he wanted to. He's seen her legs before—she does wear shorter skirts, or shorts on hot days, but this is definitely a different category of leg-seeing.

"Much better!" She's on her feet again. The cold doesn't appear to bother her bare feet and legs, but Steve insists upon lifting her over the icy patches on the sidewalks, and up their own apartment building's stoop, letting her slide onto her feet when they reach her door on the ground floor.

Being held against him like this is almost as good as moving with him on the dance floor, and ten times better than leaning against him on the sofa, watching TV. She keeps her arms draped behind his neck just for a moment more. She isn't sure who kissed whom, but it doesn't matter. She is pressing her lips up against his, and he is pushing his back, hard. Her hands are draped around the back of his neck. One of his hands is on the small of her back, the other at the nape of her neck. If she could make time slow down, she would. Then she parts her lips a little bit, and his follow them. She wonders what would happen if she opened a little more, and used her tongue to explore the inside of his mouth. Before she can find out, he pulls back, looking dazed. She tells him, "I'd better warn you, I might not want to let anyone else kiss you."

"I'm okay with that." He sounds hoarse.

"Come inside."

Her hands are on this chest. She can feel his heart beating into her palms, through his Army browns. "I—I'd better not," he stammers, and clears his throat. He's blushing furiously.

"I've made you uncomfortable. Steve I'm so sorry. Did I do that wrong?"

"What, the kiss? No! God no, not at all, believe me." There is a slightly uncomfortable silence. "I just uh…I had an amazing time, Diana." He grins lopsidedly. Then he kisses her again, his mouth closed, but lingering, and for a moment, she thinks maybe he's changed his mind. Or, perhaps she really did offend him, because he pulls away once more. She watches as he takes two stairs at a time to his floor, grinning all the while. She remembers back to a comment Natasha made this afternoon, that men are simple creatures, easy to figure out. Diana disagrees.

They are on a quiet beach, holding hands, looking at the water. "I need to get back there. They need me."

"I know." She sounds resigned.

"Come with me. Or, or I can come back for you—you know—when the war's over."

Before she can reply, another woman clears her throat. "It's time, Princess."

It is cold, and he is floating away. He can't move. Her hand is gently but forcibly pulled from his own. He is freezing. As his sight dims, he hears "Find me."


	9. Chapter 9

The next few weeks feel different to Steve…in a good way. This new shift in his relationship with Diana is amazing: sliding an arm around her waist and kissing her head while they wash breakfast dishes in her apartment, after their run; not being afraid to kiss her when they part ways for the night. In the library one day, she asks him to help her retrieve a map from way in the rear stacks, on a high shelf. Once there, she smiles shyly and says, "I lied. I don't need help finding anything." She reaches up on tip-toes for a kiss. He's smitten. He kisses her back, and she steps in a little more, presses her lips to his a little more firmly, moves her tongue into his mouth. He thinks she might swallow him whole if she could, and he's not averse to the idea of letting her try. But, work isn't the place. He gently pushes her away. "Someone's gonna see us, sweetheart."

Time at home is a different matter, though. He could kiss her for hours on end if he didn't have to breathe or eat. He keeps his hands well within what he considers "safe" places, though. She hasn't pushed for any new… um, "developments" in their courtship; he bets she'd probably like more. This isn't the 40's anymore, and she's so beautiful, and so affectionate with him. When he sees her getting hit on by other men, he doesn't have to feel alarmed, because she only wants him. He feels optimistic for the first time since he's been thawed out, as if there's actually a place for him in this world, in this century. If Tony wouldn't constantly hound him with sexual innuendos, it would be a beautiful thing. Then again, if Steve could avoid stammering for another subject every time Tony brings it up, that would be fine, too. Thor, if he's around, will sometimes silence Tony abruptly: "You will not speak of Miss Prince in those terms." Steve is dedicated to doing things the right way, but why is Thor suddenly so interested in defending Diana's honor?

It is early February, it is cold and bleak. Tony has been (sometimes even genuinely nicely) offering unsolicited Valentine's Day advice. They are in a meeting room with their Amazonian History files, waiting to be invited into Director Fury's office for further briefing. Comparing notes, it seems this story and place, and Wonder Woman, are from another, hidden dimension of Earth. They've been entertaining themselves by taking turns trying to lift Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. Tony has tried two separate Iron Man suits. Brody and Tony have tried in Iron Man suits together. Steve cannot move it. Even Bruce has transformed, but the Hulk cannot make it budge. Natasha refrains altogether, acting disinterested. Amused, Thor shrugs and says, "None of you are worthy. Diana opens the door to give them their meeting agenda, and as they start to file out past her she calls back, "Oh, Thor, don't forget this!"

Everyone turns to stare at her. She is extending her arm toward Thor, his hammer hanging by its leather loop from her index finger. Thor says, slowly, "Highness, please set it down." He averts his eyes and bows slightly. Steve and Diana are equally confused. "I'm sorry Thor, I didn't mean to offend you." She seems to be doing that to lots of people lately, she thinks. "Highness?" Steve asks Thor, thinking he must be insane.

When Diana places the hammer back on the table, her hand touches the heavy stone, it glows for a moment, and memories come rushing back: all of them—more than 2000 years' worth.

She is outside the amphitheater by the sea. "Yes," she says, we'll find each other," and her mother gently but firmly removes her hand from his. She watches him go rigid with the cold, his eyes unseeing. She doesn't understand why she can't go with him. She helped him heal when Poseidon himself sent this broken, burnt soldier from the World of Man. She spent afternoons at his bedside, telling him the stories of her people. While he walked among them, rebuilding his strength, they traded their personal stories—his of sickness, poverty, how he became a hero; hers of peace, doted upon and worshiped by thousands of mothers, trained in the arts of hunting, tracking, combat and strategies. She couldn't stand the idea of him returning to a place of such violence and hatred, all alone. She wanted to go too, and they could change the world together.

"He is not yet worthy of the Daughter of the Queen."

"I'll find him. Or he'll find me."

"His memory of his time here has been hidden in his mind. They will sleep, and never revive. He will be hidden from all who seek him. You will not find him. He will not try to find you. He'll have no reason to look for you. If you find him, he will not remember you."

Captain America is so well hidden though, no one finds him, and the dimension containing Man's world has become so fraught with destructive forces, it threatens all dimensions of Terra.

Wonder Woman does not keep her identity a secret when she arrives in the U.S.. To the chagrin of the American generals, Wonder Woman is completely innocent in the ways of the modern world. Her native tongue is Themyscrian, a variation of Ancient Greek. She speaks broken English, which she learned when she knew Captain America. It improves quickly though, until she can speak the language fluently and intuitively within a few days. She spends time with the highest officials in the American War offices, offering strategies and insights. She is trained as a warrior though, and in battle, she shows no hesitation in using deadly force when called for, even though her overall mission is one of peace. While on her mission, when she is able, she swims deep, deep into the waters, into and past Atlantis, looking for Captain America.

When peace returns to World of Man, she returns to her own world. For years, Diana spends most waking hours walking the shoreline alone, or swimming deep out into the sea, all the way to the ruins of Atlantis sometimes. The women are worried. What is it from the World of Man that makes our beloved princess so very sad? When the World of Man needs her once more, over seventy years later, she is permitted to go, but her memories are buried, repressed in deep sleep for her own good, as decreed by the Queen Hippolyta.

"Themyscira," she says quietly.

The next several minutes are almost a blur. The Avengers hear doors slamming in lockdown. Lights are flashing in the hallways, and there are sounds of security troops' heavy footfalls everywhere. All of the Avengers' communicators light up with a text: DON'T LET HER LEAVE. Thor says "I believe she has awakened, as prophesized," as Nick Fury, and Agent Coulson burst into the room with their weapons drawn. They approach, and Steve goes to intercept. He has no idea what this is about; he feels he needs to protect her, by force if necessary. But they all stop short: she is changing. Or, rather, her clothes are changing. Her hair, once tied back in a bun, hangs in black waves, all the way to the top of her hips. She is wearing blue-black leggings with light blue stars, and black, knee-high boots. Her bodice is dark red, strapless, leather, save for the golden eagle breastplate. The eagle's wings spread across her collar bones, forming two W's. She has a dark silver tiara with a red star, and silver bracers on her forearms. A length of gold rope is coiled at her hip, held in place by her belt, which matches her breastplate.

Thor drops to one knee and bows his head. Everything is still for what seems like forever to Steve. Fury breaks the silence. "Do you know," he begins cautiously, "who you are?" She looks at Steve and smiles a wide, happy smile, then says, "Yes, Director Fury. I am Diana Prince. I am the daughter of Queen Hippolyta of Themyscira, who bartered the treaty between Terra and the other eight worlds; I am shaped from the earth provided by Demeter Herself, and imbued with life by the Goddesses and Gods of Olympus. In the World of Man I am known as Wonder Woman. I have awakened…. What happens now?"

What happens is that Diana/Wonder Woman is whisked off by Agent Coulson, for what Steve assumes will be the same kind of series of physical and psychological tests he endured after his own transformation for Operation Rebirth. Director Fury moves everyone else into his office. He explains that it was probably the combination of research, strong emotional reaction (he stares at Steve, who blushes furiously), and the energy of Mjolnir that triggered Miss Prince's recollection of who she is. He spends the next three hours asking and answering questions with the Avengers team, about who she is, why her very existence has been all but redacted, and her eventual role as part of the team. Thor takes Steve aside at one point and says, "You will want to handle Mjolnir once more."

When he does, he remembers more—the dreams make sense. His acquaintance and utter fascination with a beautiful demigoddess who healed him during the War, his decision to leave, how he wondered, once, whether things could have been different. And then he woke up in the twenty first century, his last memory a plane diving into the ocean.


	10. Chapter 10

"This turned out much better than we'd expected," Coulson explains as he and Diana quickly move through the cleared halls. "The predictions on Asgard were for a traumatic, possibly violent awakening—all those Earth years assaulting you at once. There might still be some aftereffects from your awakening, Wonder Woman, but you'll be monitored closely.

"What happens next, to answer your question," is we watch you closely and test you a lot. There are going to be psychological evaluations, we're gonna see what your strength and powers are like first-hand, and then we'll see. Director Fury's goal is to put you with the Avengers, but there's a lot to do before he makes a final decision.

The next few weeks indeed will be trying. Diana had no idea there could be that much work involved in determining what kind of a person she was. There are hours of psychological and neurological tests involving paper, pencils, electrodes to her head. There are physical tests of her strength and endurance. SHIELD wants exact numbers for her physical limits—how high she can jump both from standing and running, her top running speed, what she can push, pull, lift, and press. The will even test her to see what kinds of chemical and plant substances she is naturally immune to, and what kinds of immunities she could develop.

Most of all, the scientists are checking her emotional responses and moods at first. Once she is settled into her temporary quarters (after three hours of immediate testing of vitals, memory, brain waves, and who knows what else), Diana has a chance to break down. So many memories, so many of them jumbled. She closes her eyes to better arrange her thoughts. Two hours after that, Steve is sitting next to her cot, watching her, looking worried. She hears him breathing and senses his presence before she opens her eyes, but doesn't register who he is. She springs from a prone position to one of crouching, ready to attack, and launches herself at him, knocking him backwards in his chair.

"Whoa! Ow! Hey!"

She hears running. Someone comes from behind. There is a sharp sting in her back left shoulder, and when she opens her eyes again, Steve is sitting in the corner of the room. "Steve," she extends her hand. "Why are you all the way over there?"

"You don't remember attacking me?"

She slowly pushes herself to sitting, but halfway up, her head complains, and she eases herself down again. "No. I'm sorry."

He gets up and sits at the edge of the cot. "Yeah. You were yelling something in Themyscrian. It took five guys to hold you down so Bruce could sedate you, and I think it only took five because you were disoriented."

"Was anyone hurt? Are you okay?"

"The guys will live, Bruce is fine…I was gonna ask you the same question."

"I honestly don't know. But you haven't finished answering mine. Are you alright? What happened after Coulson and I left?"

"Big meeting, lots of shouting and accusations toward Director Fury, toward Thor, toward myself."

She takes a moment to gather her thoughts. "I'm so sorry."

He grins that cute, lopsided grin. "I'll live."

"Why Thor?" She pauses. "Oh, right. His grandfather helped my mother negotiate a treaty before I was born. She told them that one day I would come to help the worlds unite again, before the next crisis."

"Another crisis? Fantastic."

"Not yet. I mean, it's a prophesy, right? I doubt anyone has a timeline figured out all that accurately. So what happened next, Steve?"

"Thor had me touch Mjolnir, thinking the energy released from your latent memories would trigger whatever ones of mine your mother repressed. It worked."

"You remember then." She smiles and tries to get up and hug him. Again, she winces in pain and lies back down.

He pats the top of her hand, kisses her forehead, and stands to leave. "You need to rest. Bruce , Coulson, and Thor are gonna take care of you."

"What about you?"

"I'll see you soon."

For the first four days, the blackouts, confusion, and random attacks, in addition to reversions to her native tongue, continue regularly. Diana remembers at least two of Steve's visits. When she asks how many visits they've actually had, he is evasive. "Does it matter?"

Bruce is extremely kind to her. Of all of the Avengers, he knows what it is to suddenly be "not you," and out of control. "Hey, at least you don't turn green and have to buy everything with elastic waists," he offers. Additionally, of all the scientists assigned to her, he is the only one who really takes the time to explain what the results of these myriad tests and measurements mean. "It's looking good. I think before the month's out, you've got this. You'll be yourself again, only better because you'll know who you are and what you can do."

What he cannot do is guarantee that Steve will come back around. Steve sees her only twice at the beginning of the following week, and then is off to Alaska for voluntary special training. When Tony and Pepper visit with Diana and hear about it, even Tony's response is an incredulous "Wait, he went where?! Now?!"


	11. Chapter 11

"Honestly Steve?" Bruce says, "Since you're circling around the question anyway, in my professional opinion, and in my opinion as a friend to both of you, Diana could really use your support right now. There'll be other trainings. You guys can sort out your memories together and make all the difference in the world—for both of you."

He feels low and conflicted. Diana's outbursts caught him off guard, even though he knew they might happen, and they meant nothing. It should not have felt like a punch to the gut when she cried out, only once, "You are NOT Steve! Where is Col. Trevor? What have you done with him?" He knows she doesn't even remember most of what she's said in that state. It's more than that. Once she goes out on missions, and she's up against legions of aliens, terrorists, god knows what else, he can lose her. Seeing her change before his eyes that day, the casual strength she used to fling him across the room…she is someone and something else now. He is torn between protecting himself from some nebulous danger he senses, and protecting her. What do you do when you find out a girl who's barely yours to begin with turns out to be a demi-goddess?

Agent Coulson puts it more bluntly when he sees Steve's paperwork requesting the training. "Of everyone on your team, you always seemed the least likely person I'd feel like saying this to, Steve. But frankly, you're being an ass. From everything I've seen, and what I've gathered in conversation, she is your girlfriend. If you care about her as much as she thinks you do, you will help her through this." He lets Steve stand there staring at something on the opposite wall. "If it was up to me," he continues, "I'd assign you to her."

So he's a jerk, asshole, dick, selfish, misguided…his friends have all pretty much taken it upon themselves to say all the things he's told himself. But he's remembering this while heading northward, sketching pictures of a stranger who looks like this girl he was dating.


	12. Chapter 12

By the third week of her release from confinement, their morning routine had crept to a standstill. "I figured you'd be too tired after all that testing, so I grabbed a bagel after an early run," he'll say. He is suddenly busy most weekends, with assignments or trainings all over the globe. In the library, he picks up his sketches, kisses her on the cheek, and leaves as Diana enters the room. "No, nothing's wrong, I'm just really swamped right now," he assures her, looking past her, as if he has somewhere he needs or wants to be.

If Steve is not there, cheering her through her progression of the next phase of testing though, Phil Coulson is there. She is able to call on him, just as she is Natasha and Pepper, for company and moral support. On a cold day in April, Diana completes the last of her trials, and is instated as an agent. The four of them go out for celebratory drinks, along with Tony and Bruce. Steve is in Eastern Europe, but congratulates her by phone, over a poor connection. It doesn't really feel like a celebration.

All through the early spring, Diana fills the void by going to the Assateague shoreline by herself, and she watches the wild horses graze, or the waves wash up on the cold beach. Memory intact, she thinks back to times when she was a small girl, and her many adoptive mothers and sisters who would let her run wild through the fields of Themyscira. She remembers how Thetis would help her throw the heaviest discuses, guiding her tiny arm through the proper form, and then racing her across the island to see where it landed. Thetis always let her win. Diana lets the icy water creep between her bare toes on this lonely stretch of island. She thinks of how her mother held her as she sobbed to let this strange being, the first man she'd ever seen, float out to the mercy of the endless ocean. Inexperienced as she was, she could not understand what she was feeling, or why. She only knew the deep pull she felt towards him. She felt happy when he was there. She feels the same way now, and wishes her mother was there for her.

When they are together, she and Steve go through the motions of their friendship sometimes, but he is more polite and standoffish than ever. When he looks at her, she sees pain, sorrow, but he will not speak of it. Most of all, it hurts her that he so clearly hurts, and that she is somehow to blame.


	13. Chapter 13

It is mid-May, and Tony comes limping into the Avenger's private lounge area. "Holy crap, she's strong." There is no sarcasm at all in his voice. Steve has watched his teammates train and spar with her from the observation deck. Actually, this most recent spar was pretty entertaining. Wonder Woman had thrown Iron Man against the wall, and he slid down onto his back like a rag doll. It seemed that was a signature move: he, Natasha, Hulk, and Thor had already received similar treatment. She stood over Iron Man's prostrate body, and he opened the visor on his helmet. Tony leered at her and said, "Y'know, this isn't what you were wearing when I fantasized this moment."

"What should I have been wearing?"

"Lacey thong, maybe some whipped dessert topping."

She paused, as if to consider the scenario. She shook her head and said, "That would be impractical. Slowly, a look of comprehension came to her face. "It would also be inappropriate." Then she punched him in the jaw.

Tony slumps into a chair. "Welcome to the ladies' sewing circle," Bruce says. "What needs to be stitched up?" Steve makes a noise that sounds almost like a snigger.


	14. Chapter 14

The Avengers have assembled in an air hangar. "Well, here she is," Agent Coulson says to Diana. Her eyes light up like a kid on Christmas day.

"You still have her!"

"We made a few changes. We learned your technology, so in return we upgraded yours. She can dive now, and you've got about four days for two people's worth of air underwater as a mini-sub."

She throws her arms around Agent Coulson and kisses his cheek. "Thank you!" She looks utterly gleeful. "Go check it out," he says, smiling back at her.

She doesn't walk to a jet. She walks into open space, and puts her hand up against nothing, stroking empty space lovingly as if she's doing a pantomime. Then she takes a few steps upward, again onto nothing, and disappears.

"Coulson what the hell," Steve starts. Then she reappears. Or at least, her head appears, about ten feet above the floor. "It's amazing!" She yells, and disappears again.

"Cloaking technology," Tony says. "Impressive."

"But she can see it," Coulson explains. "She's in a two-seater fighter jet. She had it during World War Two, and left it here for us to study." He pauses, letting the team absorb this. The he continues, "although most of the time, she really doesn't need it. You might not have seen it yet, but she can fly for short distances."

The team looks at Steve, and he feels his stomach muscles tense. Why didn't he know this? "Goddesses," he shrugs.

Diana pokes her head out again. "Come and see!"

They take turns being guided up an invisible ramp, into what at first is nothingness, but then solid, visible objects appear. The plane is indeed spectacular inside. The electronics and AI are several years ahead of their time, and the layout could have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright: no wasted space whatsoever. Steve can see why she's excited.

"Do you want to take it out this weekend?" she asks him.

It takes a few seconds for him to compose himself. For a moment, he loves the idea of flying this masterpiece of machinery. "No," he replies. "Got a mission coming up. I've gotta prepare this weekend." He kisses her forehead, gives her hand a squeeze and deplanes.


	15. Chapter 15

By June, Diana has gone on three successful solo missions. The shift in her relationship with Steve ever since her awakening is impossible to ignore. Steve is even more formal, more cordial, less at ease around her, and she is at a loss as to why. Their precious morning routine is all but defunct. She thought he wanted her to regain her memories and be whole again. He supported her aspirations to field agent. Why hasn't this brought them closer? She looks for him in the library, but he is rarely there. He has volunteered for mission after mission after mission, and isn't home much because of it. She is awakened, yes. But she feels hollow, not whole.

Neither Natasha nor Pepper can offer acceptable insight or solutions. Sitting on one of the porches at Stark Mansion, Pepper says, "He's acting like a jerk, but in his defense, you just came out as a demi-goddess and superhero a few months ago." Natasha adds, "You've beaten the stuffing out of every single Avenger, including the Hulk. He's watched you disarm Thor and throw his hammer at him, knocking him cold. You catch Hawkeye's arrows mid-air. You can fly, and you can see invisible things. Throw the Lasso of Truth into the mix, and that's definitely more than Steve can handle. Give him some more time to process the changes."

But Diana has not really changed, and Steve has had nothing but time. In fact, nothing has changed EXCEPT for Steve. She has never experienced emotions like this before. Catching that last part of the conversation, Tony walks over to the women and says to Diana, "If you love him and you feel this lousy, say something to him." All three women look up at him, shocked at this rare moment of sensitivity. "Do you have a fever?" Pepper asks?

Tony pulls an ottoman up next to Diana's chair and puts his arm around her in a half hug. His breath smells like very expensive whiskey. "Look," he says. "If I had ignored how I really felt about Pepper, I'd be a far more miserable human being than I already am."

"Thanks hon," Pepper smirks. "That's so sweet."

"I mean it, though," he protests. "I might even be dead by now if it weren't for me admitting how I felt. Get this off your chest. Get some kind of closure one way or the other." He stands up, kisses Diana's head, and heads off towards wherever he was going.

"This is not love!" Diana looks nonplussed. "I know love. All my life I've known the love of my mother and sisters. I love humankind, and peace, and the beauty I see everywhere. Love is warm, and makes you complete. This is something else entirely!"

Natasha shakes her head. "No, this is human love. It's messy and ugly sometimes. But it's also worth it.

"How can this be worth it? I can't sleep and it interferes with my duties! If I am feeling human love, then how do I stop it? This is terrible! This emptiness and wishing hounds me! It weighs me down, as if it was an illness! Why would anyone want to feel this way?"

"The only way is through," Natasha says.

Pepper nods and reaches over to place her hand over her sad friend's. "Tell him. Tony and Natasha are right, sweetie. You can't go on like this."


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...And here it is, the moment you've been waiting for, if you've hung in there with me. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and thus the "Mature" rating.

It is 06:30 on Sunday. It is mid-June. Steve wraps a towel around his waist and steps out of the shower. Then he stops cold. "Diana!" She has let herself in with her key. "I'm um, not really up for breakfast right now. Maybe later?"

"No," she says. Her voice is steady. I need to speak with you. You've been avoiding me, and it makes me sad. I miss you."

Steve tightens a little. He's aware that he is dripping wet, and only wearing a towel. He's suspected that he'd have to confront, well, whatever needed confronting, eventually though. "Okay. Uh…let me just get some clothes on. Give me a minute? I'll meet you in the living room."

Diana steels herself. "No."

He sighs, a little exasperated, and feeling more than a little cornered. "Diana, c'mon, I'm naked."

"I said No." Her voice is firm, which startles him. She reaches an arm behind her, unzips her dress, and it falls in a puddle of flowered cotton at her feet. She is wearing nothing underneath it. She looks every bit the classical goddess. Steve would not be able to speak, even if his brain could arrange a complete thought.

"I'm unclothed too, Steve. This is how I feel on the inside. I have no injuries at all, but I feel naked, wounded, and unprotected. You've been avoiding me for months: going on earlier or later runs, volunteering for extra duties at SHIELD, ducking down hallways if you see me coming. What have I done? Why are you doing this?"

He has no idea what to do or say. If his troops from the War had a magical window, and could see him in his future right now, Steve would never have had credibility as a leader. He feels heat creeping up into his neck and face. He knows his entire body is blushing. He is torn between staring at Diana and averting his eyes from her. She, on the other hand, seems completely at ease in her own skin, as if dropping in on your neighbor unannounced, naked, and making demands, is perfectly normal. It's too much. He's starting to feel something else now, as his muscles instinctively tense. "Jesus, and all your gods, just who do you think you are, Princess?" Seriously? Are you even for real?" He practically spits out the word "princess." His voice is raised.

The anger dissipates as soon as he sees the look on her face. Tears well up and roll down her cheeks. "Oh hell, Diana, I'm sorry." He takes a small step closer, and looks over at his bed stand. Aren't there tissues in here? "I didn't…" He continues.

She steps over her dress, a little closer, and interrupts him. Her voice trembles just a little. "I am for real, Steve. I am flesh and bone and blood." She takes his hand, places it over her chest, and holds it there, as if afraid he might otherwise recoil. "This is my heart, beating. Please, feel it. It's real." She puts her hand to Steve's chest. "It's as real as your heart. And I love you. Why are you angry with me? You are hurting me."

He knows his heart rate has revved about a hundred-fold. He wishes his face and neck weren't as red and hot as they felt. He starts his apology again. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry. I'm not angry. I'm a dope. No, I'm an insensitive bastard. Diana, no. Please don't cry."

She doesn't break eye contact, even through tears. "I'm not sure what I did; I'm not sure what to do. I miss being with you. I miss our mornings and weekends. I miss kissing you behind the maps in the library, Steve. I miss your arms around me. I thought we were happy together. Why don't you want to kiss me anymore?"

Now he feels as if he's been flipped out of the frying pan and into the fire. He'd almost rather she accuse him of being a war spy again. He feels like a complete screw-up. "Of course I still want…" he tries, but stops. No, that wouldn't come out right. What would Cary Grant or Clark Gable do right now? The answer probably involves not staring cluelessly at this beautiful, weeping, naked woman in two feet in front of him. Maybe surrender is the best approach. "I'm totally confused. What do you want me to do?" Okay, he knew that was stupid the moment he said it. He closes his eyes for a moment. His neglected girlfriend is standing in his bedroom without any clothes on, and their hands are on each other's' chests. "Well golly Rogers," he thinks. "What do you think she wants you to do?"

"Natasha says she is sure you have never been with a woman, or seen one naked. But I thought…" She trails off that whatever she was about to say, which is completely uncharacteristic. Before he has to react to this new bit of information, she tries the thought again, though. "I've never been with a man intimately before, either. And Steve, I honestly don't know what to do, or what I'm doing here, but I need you to understand."

Steve was going to have to have a little talk with Natasha. And yes, he's seen naked women before, especially during the War. Women were constantly invading his privacy, breaking into his hotel rooms, stark naked. Admittedly, none of them looked like this. He has no idea what to say.

She hasn't moved either of her hands. What a tableau, he thinks. If this were a painting on display somewhere, people would think the two of them were about to, well... "If I've made you uncomfortable I'm so sorry," Diana whispers. "I will leave if you wish it. I won't invade your privacy anymore." She starts to release his hand from over her heart, and hers from his, but he holds them there.

"No! I mean, please stay….It's just that if what I think might happen is gonna happen…I mean, um, I'm pretty nervous."

Wonder Woman is standing naked in front of him. She is strong and fast enough to level an entire army base single-handedly. She transcends perfect. She's what the word "perfect" was based on, and his hand is on her breast. He should lean in and kiss her, like he's seen so many times on TV and in the movies. The guy gets the girl, and they kiss. Fade out, end scene. But there's no fade out here, and she's no one's girl; she can never belong to him. That original dread begins to cloud out other thoughts. He says, "Diana, you're a damn goddess. I can't…I mean…" he swallows hard. The words simply won't come. "I belong with you," she says quietly.

Using every ounce of courage he can gather, he takes a small step forward. He kisses her, and her reaction sends shivers through him. She moves both hands to his upper arms and digs her fingers into them, pulling him closer. She really loves him. Why the heck would she want to be with some sickly, inferior, clueless kid from Brooklyn? He pulls back, but still doesn't move his hand from over her heart. "I didn't always…I wasn't always like this, you know that, right?" Her eyes are bright; her lips are a deeper red. "Steve, your body isn't the only thing about you that's beautiful." He steps closer, kisses her more deeply. Let her swallow him whole; he no longer cares. Somehow the towel is on the floor, and his hands trace the outline of her breasts, her waist, and the small of her back. Their torsos crush into each other, and she is touching the hollow space of the back of his neck, she gently bites his lower lip, and then moves her mouth to his jaw, then his throat, then the space above his collarbone. Her hands press into his back. She tugs at his earlobe with her teeth. He presses her so tightly to him that he can feel her feet come off the floor. He smiles and pulls his head back to look her in the face. She looks flushed and hungry. "I love you, too, Diana."

He takes a few steps back, and sits on the edge of the bed. She sits on his lap and faces him, and wraps her legs behind him. Her hands cup his face. She kisses him deeply, and he is hard against her abdomen. He lies down and pushes up into her as she lowers herself onto him, and they sink into each other. As they move together, he tries to keep his eyes open, so he doesn't miss anything: not a movement, not an expression. But when he brings his hands to the very place where their bodies merge, she makes a sound that he thinks may make his heart shatter.

He rolls on top of her. The boundaries between their bodies don't even exist anymore. This is the fade-out. This is why the men he'd led into battle thought this was the reason for air, water, food, and survival. This is something he barely understands, and there is no language for this. He feels like he's going to disintegrate. He can barely hold himself together, and he feels her tightening around him as he pushes deeper. When she climaxes, she sighs and calls his name along with a litany of gods. He falls to pieces. His whole body is molten, and so is hers. They do belong together. They are together. Why did they wait for so long? How many opportunities had he wasted out of fear? What the hell had he been thinking, pushing her away and causing her that much pain? Some brave soldier. He holds her to him for a few moments before rolling off of her, so she will not see the tears.

They lie side by side for a while, saying nothing. Her head rests in the crook of his arm, the lengths of their bodies touch. "Steve?"

"Mnh?"

"Love you."

"I love you too."

"Steve?"

"What is it, sweetheart?"

"I'm famished."

He rolls onto his side to look at her. "We can do something about that. I was just at the store the other day. I've got that blueberry yogurt you like."

"You hate yogurt."

"But you eat it all the time. And I missed you."

They lie still for a few more minutes. Her eyes close without ever responding. "Diana?"

"Yes?"

"I don't think I can move yet." She laughs, and he does too.


	17. Chapter 17

As is her way, Diana does not hide their relationship at SHIELD. She doesn't advertise it, but relationships and their complicated societal rules still elude her at times. When Natasha comments the following morning, in front of everyone, "Well, how come you two look so relaxed and happy today? Have you made up?" Diana replies "It is because we had intercourse seven times last night." She is completely composed, and unapologetic. Steve is bright red. He can't be angry with her, though. This is how she is: poised, frank, and guileless among the people whom she trusts. Instead, he folds his arms and drops his head, slowly shaking it "no."

"Diana," he mumbles.

"Was that too much information?

The word "NO!" resounds rather loudly from Tony, not quite subduing Steve's quiet but emphatic "yes!"

But they are happy. They tell each other that they complete one another, and they mean it. Tony Stark has given them silly "couples" nickname and jokes that they can share costumes. They ignore it. Diana's identity is secret, as opposed to Tony's and Steve's. In-jokes aren't an issue, as long as they aren't public commentaries. On missions they are professional, and as a pair, they complement one another in combat. At home, not much changes on the surface of things. They have their separate apartments, but most often, they stay the night at one or the other's. Every so often they casually discuss getting a place together—eventually. Steve is still committed to "doing things right." In the mornings they run, and sometimes she nearly takes flight as she breaks pace with him. They spend available weekends together, and for the rest of the season, he takes her to baseball games. He does not blush too much when the kissing cam lands on them. They are not rushing anything.

"We have only one moment at a time," Diana reminds him. "Each moment we have together is an entire universe."


	18. Chapter 18

The smoke is still thick, but Diana can see through it, mostly. The fact that this…whatever it is…currently stands well over fifty feet tall and is bright blue helps in that regard. Iron Man is splayed on his back somewhere, only concussed, she hopes. Hawkeye has been shot with his own arrows. Where in Athena's name are Hulk and Thor? She'd left Steve on all fours, heaving, unsuccessfully willing himself to stand.

She is clearly its target. How to you defeat a gigantic blue demon? Diana charges again. The attack is futile, though. Her flying kick will not penetrate whatever force field surrounds the creature, and she falls to the ground. But it isn't attacking her, either. It allows her to get back on her feet. Why the standoff, when all it has to do is step on her, at this point? Instead, it begins to shrink—all the way down to the size of Hulk. Hoping this means a drop in its defenses; she grabs her lasso and unfurls it towards the creature's head. When it makes contact, her mind goes blank, and she doubles over in pain, but she doesn't let go of her end of the rope. She hears music so loudly it reverberates through her whole body. The creature growls, then roars angrily and disappears.

"Are you hurt, Princess?" She barely hears him above the music's din, but she sees Thor catch Mjolnir as he calls to her. The ground is still shaking. She notices Hulk begin to return to Bruce's form. The transformation of color and shape makes her feel queasy. She partially registers being caught by Thor as she falls toward the pavement.

She is lying in the softest sand. She knows by feel and sound where she is, and smiles. Hippolyta's lullaby keeps time with the rhythm of the waves lapping against the shore. She is home. The song is Themyscrian, but the words aren't right: "don't open your eyes, don't open your eyes, don't open your eyes." How did she get here? She tries to work backward, imagining the path from her childhood home to…wait, where was she? She pictures docks, water, city streets. "Don't. Open. Your. Eyes." The music is so familiar; the words are so insistent. They won't let her follow her own train of thought. She is rocking out to sea. No, she is being carried, handed off, carried some more. The lullaby fades away.

"Wonder Woman." The voice calls her back into the here and now. She opens her eyes and sees Steve.

"He wanted to know how to find Themyscira," she says. "He used the connection through my lasso to get it from me. I wouldn't give it to him." She realizes she might have, had Thor not distracted the creature, and Hulk not attacked it. That's a conversation for later. She closes her eyes again and lets Captain America carry her back to the armored van.


	19. Chapter 19

"Hello Bruce, Natasha, Clint," Diana says, smiling. She kisses Steve hello, slips her shoes off, and sits next to him on the sofa in the Avengers' meeting area. Steve lifts her feet into his lap, and begins to massage them.

"That is so cute," Natasha says. She takes a bite out of her sandwich.

It is late September, and since their encounter with the blue demon, the world has been relatively quiet: just the usual, human-type of violence in the world.

"What've you got there?" Clint gestures towards Diana's notepad with his water bottle.

"Oh, it's notes. I have a question for Steve."

Steve doesn't look up. He is working on the ball of Diana's left foot. "What's that, my dear?"

"Well," she replies, "we have been intimate for over three months now, and I thought I should ask, for clarity's sake, what you prefer me to call your sex organs?"

Steve drops Diana's foot and turns pale. "Excuse me?"

Natasha spits a piece of tomato into a napkin. "Do you mean like, a person's name? Like 'Little Stevie' or something?" She is smirking into her lap, as if partly-chewed sandwich is suddenly wildly entertaining.

Diana looks directly at her. "As I've spent more time in this world, I've observed that there are many, many names for essentially the same act and the same body parts. I want to make sure I'm using terminology correctly, so that Steve and I can be clear about what we enjoy. So, I spent the morning in the library, and I've looked in several dictionaries and anatomy books. I also went online for research, and I've written down the medical and contemporary words most commonly used from the nineteen-nineties through now. Actually, Bruce, you're a doctor. Which of the following double as non-medical terminology?"

Before Diana can start reading aloud, Bruce clears his throat and tosses the orange slice he was just about to bite into towards the trashcan. "Sorry, uh, I'm not that kind of doctor." Diana looks at Steve and continues, "I also looked up the slang used from the 1920's through forties, in case you prefer any of those terms. For my own body, I prefer the medical terms, like 'vagina, cervix, clitoris, labia,' but we've never really discussed much about how we would use the language of intimacy. Since you prefer to talk about our intimate life in private, I was hoping you could give it some thought this afternoon, and we could talk about it tonight over dinner."

"Bruce, Natasha, Cap, I'm outta here," Clint says, standing up quickly and leaving his lunch on the table. He barely nods to Diana and heads for the door.

"Right behind you," Bruce says, without bothering to acknowledge anyone else. He shuts the door firmly behind him.

Natasha is bright red, and tears are streaming down her face. She continues to stare at her lap. Her body shakes. "Are you unwell?" Diana asks, concerned.

Natasha doesn't look up, but shakes her head vigorously. "Please, carry on." her voice cracks. "Don't mind me."

Diana shrugs, and begins to read aloud from her list.

"OUT. NOW." Steve glares at Natasha. "This conversation NEVER happened."

Lips shut tightly, she nods and starts to pick up her things as Diana continues to read.

When the door shuts, they can hear the three of them laughing.

"Did I miss something funny?"

Steve closes his eyes. "No. You can't DO that, though."

"Do what?"

She is given yet another treatise on the intricacies of relationships, public vs. private information. "So, stating your intent to have a private conversation is in itself a private conversation, yes?"

"Right," he sighs.

"But there are exceptions. I hear other people, friends even, discussing and comparing their private affairs amongst each other all the time—even intimate knowledge, sometimes. And I know not to do that."

Steve is relieved for the amount of time it takes to explain his own beliefs regarding privacy. By the time they are ready to go home, the building is quiet. He wonders how much leave he'd have to take before he can look his team members in the face again.

"Well, whatever you choose for me to call your reproductive organs, they are beautiful." She says, getting behind Steve on his motorcycle . "Tonight I will pay attention to each part, and you can name them for me." She kisses the back of his neck, and he does his best not to get into any accidents on the way home.


	20. Chapter 20

"YES!" Steve pumps his fist.

"It's not like you aren't going to be recognized anyway," Director Fury says over the speaker-phone. "But Haley just likes lady heroes."

They are lying on Diana's bed, and, moments earlier, had just accepted an invitation to Nick Fury's niece's fifth birthday party. "And now here comes the favor, Miss Prince," he said. " I need you to come as Wonder Woman."

Steve groaned. "What about me?"

"You wear whatever you feel like. Consider this the start of two week's leave. Upstate New York is beautiful this time of year, that giant blue what's-it hasn't come back, Themyscira's location is still a secret, " thus Steve's enthusiastic outburst.

It is mid-October, and now Steve is in the back yard of the Director's sister and brother-in-law, watching Diana get hit on—hard. A beaming seven-year-old boy is having his picture taken with Wonder Woman. She holds her hand out to the camera to show off her engagement ring, which is large, red, and made from rock candy. "Why don't you keep it for me, so it doesn't get taken away by any bad guys," she says to him.

"Okay. That's a good idea." He takes it from her, looking serious. Then he throws his arms around her neck and says "I love you!"

"Well I love you too," she says, and kisses his cheek. He spots some other kids preparing to jump into a pile of leaves, and runs off.

"Should I be worried?" Steve asks, walking over after the boy's parents finish thanking her.

"Well, you know I like my men at least a couple of millennia younger than me. I'm going to go say goodbye, change, and come back."

He pulls her back as she starts to leave. "What's he got that I don't?"

"Nothing at all—it's just that he asked first!"

"Ouch!" He puts his hand over his heart and laughs.

She returns a few moments later, under the cover of having been on assignment. Haley, newly aged 5, skips over and hugs her. "Wonder Woman's back!"

"Where?" Diana and Steve both pretend to look around, and exchange questioning glances. Steve mouths, "Crap!" Haley looks confused for a moment, and Diana says, "Hey, let's pretend YOU'RE Wonder Woman, and I'll be your invisible jet." She hoists the girl into the air and makes jet noises, running towards a group of children. "Uh-oh, the bad guy's gaining on us," she says loudly enough for Steve to take his cue. 'Wonder Woman' jumps from her 'plane' and tackles the 'bad guy' to the ground. Then she grabs Steve's hand and leads him off to 'prison.'


	21. Chapter 21

They spend the following day hiking the Appalachian Trail. Separate bedrooms at their hosts' home felt strange to Diana. "I've gotten used to having only part of the bed," she says.

Well, you get half of a sleeping bag tonight. I'm not sure it's really an improvement…your fiancé's not meeting us, is he?"

"You're not going to let that go for some time, are you?"

"Nope. You're really, really good with kids, incidentally, but I am brokenhearted." He hangs his head and exaggerates a pout. Then he jogs a few steps ahead, sets his pack down and looks out towards the mountain range. The sun is starting to dip down towards the river below. "I love this. Do you mind if we stop so I can draw a little bit?" The whole world is quiet. Diana takes a few steps to catch up and says, "We can set up camp here if you like. Is that what it will take for you to mend?" He turns to face her, and puts his arms around her waist. "If it doesn't do the trick, then I'm sure I'll think of something else later on."


	22. Chapter 22

"Okay, you can move now," he tells her. Diana is sitting on top of the sleeping bag, naked. She walks over to see. The sketch pad is next to him. She frowns. "How long have you actually been finished, but staring at me?"

She can see his face color a little, despite the darkness. "Awhile," he replies sheepishly. She sits in front of him and puts a hand on each of his knees. He leans forward to drape his bomber jacket over her bare breasts and shoulders, and then brushes her hair back. "It's not easy to get your hair right when it's this dark and all I've got is a pencil."

"I like it out here." She rolls the jacket off again.

"You must be freezing."

"Warm me then." She cups his testicles with one hand, and leans in to kiss him. He's warm. He's always so warm. He pulls back to look at her. "Avec plaisir, madame." She bites his lip. "Ow." "That's mademoiselle," she corrects him and moves her mouth down to his Adam's apple as she gently pushes him onto his back. He tries to pull her back up to kiss her again, but she holds his arms down, and moves her head down to one side of his chest, then the other, running her tongue across his clavicles.

"What're you doing? Come back here." He half-heartedly tries to unpin his arms. "You stay put mon captain." She is making her way toward his abdomen now. "Don't make me get out the lasso." She lets go of his arms so she can shift further down his body, and kisses the space below his navel, rubs her cheek against the head of his penis. He moans. "This is totally unfair to you."

She lightly kisses his tip, and starts to creep her way back up his body. Her nipples graze the length of his torso and he shudders. "Don't be so sure about that, my love." She kisses him hard, and then ducks back down between his legs, placing her mouth over him completely. She can feel his muscles tensing and releasing. This is new for them. In truth, she loves this—loves that she can use her body to give him this much physical pleasure, loves that his first concern is her own fulfillment. She loves that they can learn about each other like this.

After some time, he begs, his voice slightly strained, "Diana, come back up to me. Please." She releases him and sighs. "I'm curious about whether it has a taste," she says. She notices a tiny droplet of moisture at the tip of his penis and puts her tongue to it. "Oh, man. Has anyone ever told you before that you're insane?" he asks, but she knows he's smiling. "Get back over here." He hoists himself back to sitting, and sweeps her up by the elbows so that she is straddling him." He pushes himself into her and nuzzles his face into the space between her jaw and her ear. Her cries echo through the mountains.

They lie on their backs. Diana is pointing out constellations, telling the stories of how the heroes of her heritage came to dance in the sky. She can tell he's only partly listening, though. "What do they do about marriage in Themyscira?" he interrupts.

"They don't," she replies. "Sometimes two or three women will spend some decades in committed domesticity, and their decision for exclusive fidelity is respected."

"Oh."

"From the stories I've grown up with, I can tell you that marriage doesn't work out well at all on Olympus," she continues. Aphrodite is wed to Hephaestus, but she takes many lovers, and is a constant consort to Ares. Zeus and Poseidon's conquests outside of their wives' chambers are notorious. The heroes of most of our stories are the offspring of the gods' myriad dalliances, and not all of the couplings were consensual." She pauses to yawn and snuggle closer against Steve. "Among my people, the examples set by those whom we worship are not worth emulating…why do you ask?" She is struggling to keep her eyes open.

"Just wondering."


	23. Chapter 23

The cabin they are borrowing is small. "Not quite Stark mansion," Steve says. He hands Diana a cup of tea." She takes it in both hands, shivering. "I told you not to go swimming."

"It felt good at the time," she protests, and takes a long sip. She is bundled up in two sweaters and the bed quilt, and is sitting in a chair that is pulled up as close as possible to the wood-burning stove in the fireplace. "It was good of the director to loan us this place. I like this better than where Pepper and Tony live."

"Well, your mission was at Director Fury's sister's; my mission's here," he replies. She raises an eyebrow. "Top secret for now," he adds. "Anyway, no more showing off by flying down the ravine into the water to skinny dip, especially at night. You're from a tropical island, not the Great White North."

"We'll see," she says. "Maybe I'll fly you down with me next time." She gets up and walks, tea, blanket, and all, away from the fireplace and over to the sofa. "I mean it," he protests. "Don't tell me what to do," she retorts, obviously fighting back a smile. "I'm an old lady. Humor me."

He grins at her. "An old lady with unusually impressive stamina."

Tucking her feet underneath her, she says, "Put your drawing things away. Tell me a story."

"Mine aren't as interesting as yours," he protests. Really, he draws her so much because it's less obvious than openly staring, which he probably does enough of anyway. What hair of hers that doesn't disappear underneath the blanket hangs in loose ringlets, like ribbons of the night sky. Her face is luminous.

"She walks in beauty," he begins.

"I'm shivering and huddling in the corner of a couch," she interrupts, smiling.

"Okay, fine, but don't interrupt me. I worked hard to memorize this."

"Very well."

"Ahem…'She *slouches on an old couch* in beauty,'" he begins again, holding her gaze, "'like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meets in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impair'd the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress

Or softly lightens o'er her face,

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek and o'er that brow

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,—

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent,'

There," he concludes with a grin.

"Shall I swoon?" she asks, but she is clearly moved.

"Please do," he says. "Choosing and memorizing that poem took some time."

"I still want a story."

He feigns exasperation. "You're KILLING me, Princess."

Diana straightens a little, squares her shoulders, and fixes him with a stare. "Then perish knowing you have pleased the court well." She smiles sweetly, and Steve rolls his eyes. "Tell me about how your parents met. Tell me about the part of your childhood that was happy."

He sighs. "There's not much to tell on that front," he says. They were both immigrants from Ireland, you know that, and that they didn't have much even before the '29 crash. I know my folks loved each other tremendously, but by the time I came around, Matthew'd already died, and they were always a little sad. I don't really remember that much about my dad, since I was so young when he died, but I have bits and pieces. He and my mom were always really careful with me because I was so small and sickly. Mom made sure I stayed in school for as long as I could, after we lost Dad. She worked a lot so that I could go to art school." He goes on to recite what he knows about the courtship of Sarah and Joseph Rogers, and fond memories of his mother, up until her illness and death while he was still in his teens.

When he trails off, Diana says softly, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you sad." She moves over and pulls the quilt around both of them.

"Don't be—I'm not. They loved each other for as long as they had each other; they loved me as long as they were alive. Things worked out. Actually…" He trails off again, turns a bit pink, and looks at the floor.

He inhales sharply, and looks at Diana. "I know my heritage and its customs, and yours are really, really different." He begins, and then stops to look down at the floor again. He holds his hand up when he sees her about to interrupt. "You once said, when we first met, that all anyone ever really has is a moment at a time, and that if you let yourself, a whole universe can be experienced in each moment… Don't say anything yet," he adds, sensing she is going to speak. She keeps her mouth closed, and watches him steadily.

"I spent a long time—maybe most of my life—not really knowing where I fit into the scheme of things. I'm not good at much other than being a soldier." Another pause. Diana remains silent. He looks at her directly.

"Ever since we met, Diana, that started to change. I love you so much."

"Steve…"

"Let me finish." He takes a deep, slow breath. "I want to spend every moment I have in this life showing you how much I love you. I want to dedicate every universe we have together to making you happy." He fidgets around in his pocket for a moment, and then kneels on the floor.

"This was my mom's. Dad spent every last penny he'd socked away on it, and it's small, but it has my whole life in it. I carried it around with me from the moment Mom died, even though she'd wanted me to sell it." He inhales sharply. "Diana, Princess of Themyscira, Daughter of Queen Hippolyta, Given Life's Breath by the Gods of Olympus, will you marry me?" He holds out a small ring. What seems like an eternity goes by, even though it is probably only a few seconds before Diana slides off the couch and kneels down next to him. "Yes, of course I will, Steven Grant Rogers of Brooklyn, Captain in the United States Army. Of course I will." He hugs her as tightly as he can after he slips the ring over finger. "Mission accomplished," he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "She Walks in Beauty," George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)


	24. Chapter 24

In the rental car home, Steve yet again goes over the ground rules regarding disclosure of details. He's not always sure about the balancing act between being an overbearing jerk about "rules" and being protective of their privacy. He's been around long enough to know what the press is like, though, and Diana, by the time they reach the city, is perfectly clear about what the public can know, what mutual friends can know, what she can divulge to her closest girlfriends, should she choose.

Two days after they return to D.C., they are called in for an emergency meeting at the Stark Industries Building late in the afternoon. Upon entering through the double doors of one of the building's large meeting rooms, they are received with applause from the entire Avengers team, Director Fury, Agent Coulson and a few members of his team, Pepper and Jane. Tony jokes that all of their wedding pictures will be a variation on the image of the two of them at that moment: Diana cool and unperturbed, smiling warmly; Steve wary, bright pink, looking as if someone was training a weapon on him. "Party's this way," Tony announces, leading the group from the room. He and Thor manage to separate Steve from her, with talk of bets on best man, and bachelor party plans. "Clint," Diana says, grabbing his sleeve before he can join the three men, "you are aware that Steve is fairly uncomfortable with large gatherings involving debauchery."

"Yeah," he grins. "That's what's gonna make this so much fun!"

Diana, on the other hand, is more fortunate that afternoon. Her girlfriends are clearly excited for her, but they listen to her describe their weekend. They seem a bit more sensitive to what must literally feel foreign to her. "On the contrary," she replies. Even in ancient times, weddings were very festive events, even, they say, among the Olympians. "I think Steve is having a harder time of it at the moment." She is not sure what their plans will be yet. Right now, she tells them, she is happy to be surrounded by so much love. It has been a very long time since she's felt this way.

Even for someone as patient as Diana, though, the festivities become overwhelming. After a while, Natasha finds Diana in the kitchen, holding a glass of ice water, her eyes closed.

"We've got stronger stuff out there, you know," Natasha says.

"It doesn't affect me."

"Are you okay? You've been gone for like, half an hour. I told the others that a surprise party might be a bad idea."

Diana smiles, keeping her eyes closed. "No, it's lovely. I just don't know the protocols. I don't know what I am going to wear, where the ritual will take place or when, or…" She trails off, trying to remember the phrasing. "Natasha, what is meant by the choosing of colors? I can't answer some of my friends' questions, so I am recollecting myself."

Natasha puts an arm over her friend's shoulders. "Leave that stuff for later. Right now, you have two jobs, Diana. The first is to get back to your engagement party and soak up all the love."

Diana opens her eyes and sips her water. "What is my second obligation?"

"Save your fiancé from the party boys who seem hell-bent on embarrassing him." Diana laughs, downs her drink, and lets Natasha hold her hand, guiding her back to the celebration.


	25. Chapter 25

It is 01:00, an hour after they have returned home from the annual Christmas party. Diana calls out from her bathroom, "There's room in here for a large Irish American man, if you know anyone interested!" Steve peers through the door. "Got anyone in mind?"

"Maybe." She waves a soapy foot at him.

He ducks back out of the room. She thinks she's getting better at innuendo, but maybe she missed the mark on this one? "Steve?"

"Just getting undressed—be right there."

A few moments later, he slides into the tub behind her, and wraps his legs around hers. "You could have disrobed here. I would have enjoyed it."

"Didn't want to mess up my Army formals. You've got oils and stuff in here that'll stain them." She sighs and leans her head back on his chest, and he massages her shoulders. Although she understands the importance of clothing and its symbolism, it has always seemed to her that in Patriarch's world, people are excessive about it. "What you mean is you did not wish for your clothes to become a 'mess' uniform," she says, deadpan.

"Diana Prince, did you just make a pun?" Steve asks.

"Did I do it correctly?"

"You did!" He kisses the back of her neck. "I'm so proud of you!" She is pleased.

"We should talk about setting a date and make plans," he begins. He wonders aloud when this particular dynamic got turned around. Isn't the bride supposed to be the one who moves things along at this point?

"Mnm." She relaxes as he digs his hands into her upper back. "So you wish to discuss plans right now?" She feels neither aversion from nor assent to this topic. "Umm…yes? I mean, people were asking me about it all night."

"I don't know the next part of the ritual, so I was leaving it up to you, my love."

"Uh, I'm pretty sure we just make plans and mail out invitations. It isn't that complicated, I don't think. It's not really the man's job. Or we can talk about where to live. That's the other question I got a lot." This is an ugly part of the culture Diana does not think she will ever completely understand: division of responsibilities by virtue of gender. No one can give her a satisfactory explanation.

She groans, thinking of the pile of papers, all copies of living quarter layouts, brochures, sample contracts, they'd been pouring over for the past few weeks. She had been subjected to these questions multiple times this evening as well.

Diana disagrees. "From my researches, the whole process is extremely complicated, but the steps are not implied in the details I've seen in magazines and on the Internet. We'd have endured many of the trials by now on Themyscira."

Steve stops rubbing her shoulders. I thought you said they don't get married where you come from."

She tilts her head up at him. "We don't. But if only two Amazonians decide to formally court one another, they may choose the appropriate ritual and oaths."

She can feel him mouth the word, "eureka." He sometimes forgets that she is sensitive to the subtle fluctuations of his muscles on her body. "Why are you surprised? All you had to do was ask."

"Sweetheart, I did ask. You told me your people don't get married."

"They don't. You ended the subject after that."

"We should go there, then. I should get your mother's permission or something."

She can't help laughing. In fact, it takes her a few minutes before she can compose herself enough to respond. "If you needed her permission, I would not have agreed to marry you. I don't recommend bringing the ritual of permission to Themyscira. I am the only one with a parent, in your sense of the word. The gesture would be meaningless."

"Okay, I give up," Steve says, sighing and resuming the shoulder rub. I have no idea what practically immortal beings do, what their timelines are like, or what happens when there are no traditional families. You're wearing my ring; you agreed to commit on my terms. I want to do the same in kind. Take me to whoever's in charge there and I'll do whatever they say."

She starts to laugh again. "Did you just ask me to 'take you to my leaders'?" When he laughs at that, she feels his torso convulse slightly. She is pleased with herself, having effortlessly composed and delivered two jokes in the same night. "I mean it, though," he says after they recover. "Take me home to meet your folks."

"Do you have a death-wish," she continues, smiling.

Before he can answer, the ground shakes, and there are screams of panic and terror everywhere.


	26. Chapter 26

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this building under renovation earlier tonight?" Ironman says, hovering above a pile of bricks and dust.

Wonder Woman ignores him, and swats away two humanoid creatures with one arm. She hears a clang and another creature screams out from behind her, and then lands with a thud. "Watch your back," Captain America yells.

How long have they been doing this? Minutes? Hours? The armored swarm of monsters pour from the sky. There doesn't seem to be an end to them.

By five that morning, the Avengers are surveying the damage: an entire three blocks of city, demolished. Wonder Woman looks forlorn. She is staring at a dead, middle-aged woman who is broken and bent over the body of a boy who cannot be more than ten years old. "We saved as many as we could," Thor says in an attempt to comfort her. "There might have been many, many more deaths had it not been for…"

She jerks her head up and steps up to him angrily. "TOO MANY!" She shouts. She hoists a large chunk of concrete sidewalk from the ground, flies a few feet up, and slams it to down, far from where it can hurt anyone. Natasha, Bruce, and Captain America wince at the sound of the crash. "Diana," Steve begins, but she glares at him and flies off.

After the briefing at SHIELD, Steve waits outside of Director Fury's door while Diana receives what he's sure is a reprimand of sorts. The door opens, and he hears Fury say, "…super-powered hissy fit every time a fight doesn't end exactly the way you wanted it to." Then he hears "Rogers, get her out of here." Steve knows that's not gonna go over at all. He's not his fiancée's keeper, and he sure as hell isn't about to tell her to do something she doesn't want to do. "Mandatory leave," she says flatly. "Two days." She brushes past him. He gives her some time before joining her.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> O brave new world,  
> That has such people in it! 
> 
> (Wm. Shakespeare, The Tempest)

Even though they have been submerged in the Atlantic Ocean, they are completely dry when they set foot on land. Steve remembers this place now. It is the scene of a very sad goodbye that happened almost a century ago. A few paces ahead, a goddess stands with her back to him. Diana is wearing a simple tunic that is the color of the inside of a shell—not quite pale pink. Her hair is loose, and her arms are spread wide to the cloudless sky. He'd do anything for art supplies right now. He remembers her tears; he remembers her fingers forcibly removed from between his. He remembers his sight darkening, his body going cold and rigid. It doesn't feel like a lifetime ago. He'd do anything she asked right now.

The quiet spell is broken with delighted screams from dozens of women…no, probably make that hundreds, who come running toward her from the jungle. He doesn't understand Themyscrian, but the gist is clear. The prodigal princess has returned. He watches her disappear into an ever-growing throng. From the perimeter, a few women glance over at him. Some of them frown, but a few smile. Eventually, three women walk over, kiss his cheek and guide him through the group, making it clear that he is not to stand next to Diana, but a few steps behind her. Diana turns to take his hand, but someone whose authority she clearly respects slaps her hand away, and she turns around again. "You should kneel," she says in English, so he does. The energy of the frowning women subsides, and they all seem satisfied. "I should have warned you. It's been too long since I've been home."

A palpably nervous hush descends, and Diana kneels as well. Steve peers up. He knows who has arrived before she is announced. He remembers her ever-watchful eyes on him as he spent weeks regaining his strength and befriending her mysterious daughter. She looks at him with obvious disgust and he lowers his eyes again. Then he hears her crying and talking a mile a minute. Someone guides him to stand. Hippolyta and her daughter are embracing. She repeats Diana's name, along with what he guesses are terms of affection, over and over.

Steve is mostly ignored by the Amazonians, and left to his own devices on the island. Diana has much to talk about with her mother—about the blue monster who wants to find the island, about her personal plans. He understands. At any rate, he also understands why, if one of their gods wanted him to heal all those decades ago, this would be the place to do it. Something about the environment here is calming and healing in itself. He doesn't mind spending time alone here, although he wishes Diana was with him.

"Is this what you want, warrior?" He looks up. An old woman is extending colored sticks and a ream of parchment toward him. "Thanks," he says, taking the gifts. "I can understand you!"

The woman nods once. "I am servant to Pallas Athena," the woman replies. It occurs to him that maybe the calming energy of this place has a second purpose. Under normal circumstances, this might be a little too much for him to handle. But he doesn't feel alarmed at all. "Of course you are."

The woman hands him a small scroll. Letters and words in Diana's language appear, then reform in English. A picture begins to form—no, a moving picture. He remembers part of a myth he once read as a little kid, where a god gave the hero a scroll that allowed him to scry, thus learning important secrets. He sees Diana and Hippolyta in an enclosed garden. Hippolyta is clutching Diana's hands in her own. There is genuine pain in her voice when she says, "I will not allow it. I sent him so far away before. I will do it again."

"Then we will find each other again, Mother. I have pledged myself to him. I have consented to the marriage ritual in his world. I love him, darling mother."

Hippolyta throws Diana's hands to her side and takes a step back. She looks Diana in the face, and her gaze moves down Diana's torso. She firmly places one hand to Diana's brow, the other to her navel. Hippolyta turns a shade that Steve can only identify as the color of absolute fury, and slaps Diana across the face, hard. Diana is knocked to the ground, but doesn't react. Steve does. Or at least, he intends to. The servant gently places a hand on Steve's shoulder, and he is unable to stand.

"He wishes to perform the Ritual of Hiketeia," Diana says, evenly.

"I will not permit it."

"It is not for you alone to decide." Her voice is resolute—almost cold. Diana stands, embraces her weeping mother, and leaves. Hippolyta drops to her knees and begins to pray, and the servant of Athena appears in front of her.

Wait a sec—he turns his head, and the woman who was standing over him a moment ago is gone, and so is the scroll. Steve lets himself drop onto his back. He when he woke up in the twenty-first century, he'd thought he'd never get used to the how alien the world was. That was nothing compared with this. He is relieved that their stay here will be temporary, but then feels a pang of regret. Even when she doesn't agree with or understand them, Diana never complains about having to follow the unwritten rules and customs of the world he knows. He wonders if Diana or Thor always feel this much like a fish out of water. He silently chides himself for being selfish, and feels very much alone.


	28. Chapter 28

"There will be silence," Hippolyta says, and even though her voice is even, the sentence resonates through the entire amphitheater without so much as an echo. The only sound, for what feels like an eternity, is of waves somewhere off in the distance. Diana is kneeling in front of him in a deep purple tunic, edged with gold and silver at the hem to denote her status as royalty. She smiles up at him. He doesn't smile back. Not reacting isn't an issue, at any rate. For all her beauty in his world, here, she practically outshines the sun. If it was just the two of them right now, he thinks he might be moved to tears. If this was their wedding, and she was wearing what he's used to seeing a bride wear, and she was standing up, and it was a priest and not a mythological woman from a book presiding over this-whatever they were doing-and they weren't surrounded by a circle of shields and swords, THEN, he'd probably be emotional. As it is though, he is extremely self-conscious. He's wearing a white tunic and nothing else. The tunic was a compromise. Were it not for Diana's intervention, he wouldn't be wearing anything, standing here in front of thousands of women and his future mother-in-law. He's just plain nervous.

Hippolyta hands Diana half of a coconut shell, which Diana extends to Steve. As he's been instructed, Steve carefully removes a loop of string with a nectarine seed attached to it. He kisses the seed, and recites, "That thou art full of promise," and places the seed around Diana's neck. Okay, that wasn't so bad. He only knows his part of the ritual. He's reasonably sure its entirety has been concealed from him on purpose, maybe as Hippolyta's attempt to humiliate him a little, as a tiny revenge for taking her daughter. Well played, he thinks.

He looks up at the queen, and she nods to him. He very carefully takes another, multi-colored item from the half-shell. It is a bracelet made from the sharpest thorns he's ever touched, and woven and impaled through the thorns are blue, gold, and red ribbons. He'd been warned about the razor-sharp thorns, and his intended strategy had been to hold the bracelet by one of the ribbons and avoid being cut. Apparently someone's seen to it that the ribbons are wound tightly through the bracelet, without any loose ends. He inhales sharply, and does his best to suppress a sound of pain as he holds it. He hears the queen mutter, "Mortal man," disdainfully.

Fingers bleeding, he says, "That thou shalt know the heart of another," and places it over Diana's wrist. It slides on easily without breaking her skin. She stands to face him, and leans her face closer to his. He's smiling now, and is about to kiss her when she says quietly, "Defend yourself." The spectators stand and begin to hurl their spears at the two of them.

"I would've warned you if I'd been allowed," Diana explains later, as she swabs a gash in Steve's calf. He winces in pain, and then relaxes as the wound closes up and disappears. We are sworn to endure physical, mental, and emotional tests together to demonstrate that we will face all of life's dangers as one."

"We haven't done that yet?" he asks warily. "We have. That's why I was able to compromise and have spears thrown. She sees the look on his face and laughs. "Are you sorry you asked for this?"

He takes the nectarine seed between his fingers, kisses it, and kisses her. "Not at all."

"Well the good part is next, she continues. "You will be the guest of honor at a celebration tonight, having gained my pledge to submit to you."

"You did what?"

"By accepting your gifts, I have pledged to comply with anything you ask, within reason, unquestioningly for six days: one day for each of the goddesses and god who breathed life and gifts into my clay form. In return, you are to provide me with worldly comfort."

"I'm gonna like this part."

"There will be aspects of this time which I'm sure you will enjoy immensely."

"So, can I wear my own clothes tonight?"

"Is that your first request?"

"Well, it is if you help me out of this tunic."

"Your desires are my own, my love."


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's definitely for you grown-ups. You've been warned.

Over the next few days though, Steve learns that this period is much more of a test for him than it is her. Every gesture, every word he says to Diana has to be performed with meticulous care, for fear she will do something she doesn't really want to do, just to please him. For Diana, the lesson comes by way of mandatory selfishness. She must learn to relinquish control. He'd never realized before how much she'd made their relationship about him. He did all the things he thought a fiancé was supposed to do—act like a gentleman, generally acquiesce to Diana's wishes. So much has gone unsaid until now. He slowly comprehends how much of Diana's wishes are for his own happiness, now. In that aspect, Steve's requests involve learning more about her opinions, what words and actions bring her the most emotional and physical joy, and making her put his own desires after her own.

"Uh-unh," Steve smiles, shaking his head, "Nope." "My rules for now." You're not allowed to do anything buy lay there."

It is dark, and they are in a grotto on one of the far, unpopulated shores. "I think you are enjoying this a bit too much," Diana says. There is levity in her tone, but it's somewhat forced. She's probably kind of miserable right now.

To maintain forced lightness of mood, he replies, "You just don't like giving up control." They say nothing for a few moments.

"What, no argument?" Diana shakes her head in reply. Suddenly Steve feels uncomfortable. "Sweetheart, we don't have to do anything. I'm not gonna tell you what do do." At this, Diana props herself up on her elbows to look him in the face. Why does he feel completely helpless right now? All day long, they'd been receiving guests, being asked to bless other unions (Diana was much more comfortable with that one), being wished well. They were finally alone, now. "Um, look, I know this sounds crazy, but I could use a little help here."

She glances down to his crotch. "You don't look like you're having trouble," she says evenly. He feels warmth creep up the back of his neck and into his face. "That's not what I mean." She reaches her hand to his brow and brushes his hair back. She is waiting to receive instruction of some sort. He says, "You'll have to tell me, you know, if you need me to stop." Man, he feels like an idiot right now.

"I am supplicant to you, Steve. It doesn't mean I'm passive. I trust you. I took an oath, and I trust you with my well-being, my heart, and my body," she says solemnly, gazing straight into his eyes. He interlaces his fingers with hers, and pulls her up to sit. He says softly, "Close your eyes. Try not to move."

Steve starts with what he knows. He kisses her forehead, moves his hands to her face, and kisses each eyelid, the bridge of her nose, her lips. She softens her mouth and moves her tongue over his, and lets him explore the back of her teeth, inner cheeks, the roof of her mouth. She moves her own mouth only a little, only to let him excavate further. He can tell it's an effort for her to not suck his whole mouth into hers, greedily, as she often does. If he'd given it any thought before, he'd have been certain he knew how to kiss the love of his life. Now, when she sighs her warm breath in his mouth, he realizes he was completely wrong. He'd never kissed her before. Not ever.

When he breaks off the kiss, she sighs deeply and smiles. He traces a finger along the outlines of her lips, her jaw, and then her throat. He moves his mouth to the hollow notch at the base of her throat, and her breath catches just slightly, her heart beats just a fraction faster. He looks straight at her, this strange, beautiful creature, whose eyes are closed, her serene, trusting face, and he brushes her hair back, puts his teeth to the space between her jaw and the back of her ear. She involuntarily leans closer and takes a deep, controlled breath.

He traces the nape of her neck with his fingers, then her spine, and all the wide muscles of her back. She seems to understand what he wants, and she slowly exhales, relaxing the muscles of her entire torso. He wonders if he's ever even properly touched her before. How had she put up with the clumsy, awkward pawing he'd been subjecting her to until now? He moves his hands carefully, looking for subtle changes in her breath, her expression, and her composure as he finds the space between each vertebra, all the way down to the small of her back, where her breath catches again. He doesn't want to miss anything. He walks his fingers along the length of each of her ribs until they meet up again at the base of her throat. Her heart beats faster. She makes fists in the sand, but her expression remains placid. The fabric of her tunic is thin and damp. He holds her wrists up over her head with one hand and peels the garment off of her with the other, then guides her onto her back. He has never known her body. He'd been fooling himself up to this point.

She begins to move her hands back down to her sides, but he stops her, and slides them back, past her head again. He holds her two wrists to the ground with one hand, just firmly enough for her to understand he wants her to keep them there. She doesn't resist. Her hair is splayed out in the sand. He's not sure if goddess or angel are adequate words for how she looks right now. Once, as a kid, he spent an afternoon staring at a Maxfield Parrish painting on loan at the museum. A young being, neither male nor female, lay like this, beatific, radiating light into everything around it. The being was neither adult nor child, neither sexual nor asexual. It was the first time art had actually moved him to tears. Now, kissing her again, he thinks his heart might stop altogether and burst into light, just like in that painting. He brings his lips down to her left breast, and slides his arm under her back, cradling her head in his hand. He moves his mouth slowly, starting where the ribcage ends and breast begins, slowly circling up to aureole and nipple, and she inhales sharply and arches into his mouth. When he repeats this exploration on the right breast, he thinks he can feel not just her heart pounding, but also the very blood that moves through each chamber. Her breasts taste the way her heart sounds. Maybe he's in a Maxfield Parrish painting. His senses have never been this heightened and mixed up in his life.

This is why it doesn't seem strange or unnatural to him to move his mouth down her abdomen and past her belly. Had this been what he'd known as 'real life,' he wouldn't have dared. The very allusion to this, when he'd heard other guys talking trashy about it mortified and kind of disgusted him. He slides his palms past her buttocks, her hips, and presses his fingers down into her inner thighs. He puts his mouth to the outside of her labia. He doesn't let himself think, he doesn't give himself permission to second guess this. All he knows is that her abdomen is tensing and releasing, tensing and releasing, like waves, and the rest of her is soft, unresisting. She isn't like the waves, she is the waves. She trusts him. She's said so. This person he thought he knew better than anyone is courageous, and honest to a fault. Until this moment, it had never occurred to him that she would hesitate around him, or that she ever really did anything other than exactly what she wanted. Now he understands why her self-imposed submission is a trial for them both. She has never allowed anyone to really give her anything—not without some plan of returning that kindness. She's trusting him now, with no expectations, no plans to do anything but surrender. He understands that it is not him to whom she surrenders right now, but to the entire concept of trust.

This is also why he was read the riot act about the duties of the suitor a few days ago. He is responsible for everything she senses in every fathomable way. She is letting go into him as he moves his tongue over her and inside of her. The terrain here feels like the petal of a flower. She smells and tastes like the beach: clean, tropical. His part of this trial is grave vigilance. He gets that now, without even having to find the words for it. He moves his mouth into her, taking his time over every fold and valley, and whispers a solemn, heartfelt pledge into the center of her being. The fluidity of her movements, the way she becomes the ocean, makes him worry for a moment that she might dissolve into the sand, her dear body lost to him forever. But he also knows that she is more solid than ever, and she will not leave him. With every undulation and sigh, he understands that she has acknowledged and accepted his promise.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Tahiti is magical."--Phil Coulson (Agents of Shield)  
> "Themyscira is just weird"--Steve Rogers (imaginary reply)

By the last day of the trial of submission, Hippolyta is satisfied that Steve is worthy of her child's devotion, and she tells them so. Out of gratitude and relief, she will grant Diana a gift—one only she can offer as leader of Themyscira. It's her way of making amends to her daughter for doubting her judgment.

"A request for audience with a god, who will, within reason, perhaps grant you a gift," Hippolyta tells them.

Diana looks frightened. Steve's never seen frightened on Diana before. Before either of them can respond, Hippolyta fixes them both in her stare. "If your intended mate has taught you well," she says, "you will accept this gift with grace." Well, Steve definitely knows the "mom stare" at least. Some things don't change no matter where you're from, he supposes. Diana recovers her composure and bows her head. "I know what I would ask from whom, Mother. Thank you."

It is the following morning, and the sun has not yet broken across the horizon. Hippolyta is excited. She tells Steve that this meeting will be between Diana and the god whose ear she requests. Even she herself does not know what they will see. They will be there to witness, but will not be allowed to interfere. She hopes aloud that they will bear witness to a conversation between her daughter and Artemis, or perhaps Pallas Athena herself. Perhaps she will appeal to Zeus for protection.

The three of them stand at a rock that juts out into the sea, in a remote section of Themyscira. This is the site of the gateway to Olympus. No human has been here since very ancient times. Diana stands at the head of the rock, and waves violently crash against it, soaking her. She kneels down and begins to chant. Steve cannot understand the extremely ancient language, but Hippolyta is pale and looks terrified. It's a look Steve remembers from his own mother's face, each time he would be rushed to the hospital with another asthma attack. "Child," she cries, gripping Steve's arm. "I will offer you anything you wish. Stay here for eternity. Be immortal with my daughter and live together in bliss. Whatever you wish that is mine to offer, I give you. Make this oath with me and perhaps we can prevent her from what I believe she is about to do."

Before he can reply, the sea turns black, and a gigantic, inky figure looms over Diana, whose head is bowed. It blots out the entire sky. He hears in perfect English, in a voice that makes his whole being go cold, "Explain, most favored by the goddesses."

"Of all of the gods of Olympus, your word is truest, and your duties the most grave," Diana replies. She remains on her knees, but she is facing this god directly. "Your judgment is final and you are unmoved by all but your wife. Of your brothers and cousins, only you take your marriage vow as truly sacred in all ways, and your devotion to her happiness, your repentance for the suffering you caused her, is evident in the Earth's seasons."

"Impudent girl," Hippolyta whispers to Steve. She sounds horrified. "She will be struck down." She moves to flee toward Diana, but Steve holds her back. "I'm not really sure what's happening right now," he whispers back, "but I trust her."

Demigoddess and god are speaking in such hushed voices, it is impossible to hear their conversation. A dark, enormous hand reaches forward and perches over Diana, creating a kind of cage. Hippolyta screams. This time, Steve is ready to intervene. He leaps to his feet, but the wind knocks him down again. When he yells to her, no sound emerges. The hand lifts away, and Diana turns for a moment, holds out her hand, and calls to him.

The wind howls violently, but he walks towards her as if all was calm. "They will not be able to speak to you, but you will sense their responses, and they will see and hear you. Don't try to touch them." She points toward gigantic Hades, who opens his cloak. From the folds of his garment, two figures materialize and float before them, just beyond the rock's precipice. "I will leave you to your privacy," Diana says. Steve grasps her hand tighter in response. "Stay, please," he can barely speak. "Ma, Pop, hi. Hey, look, I'm alive…and healthy. I helped save the world a couple of times. This is my fiancée, Diana Prince.


	31. Chapter 31

"Hey," Steve raises his voice. "I think that's enough!" Diana has already stormed out of the room. She hasn't been able to adequately explain herself, and now he's left here, trying to keep Hippolyta from following Diana to continue the tirade. "Stop!" He demands. "What did she do to get you this worked up?" This has been a weird morning, which is saying something.

Hippolyta refocuses her outrage toward Steve. "You fool!" She howls. Wasn't she just begging for his help, offering him immortality a few hours ago? "She's renounced her immortality!" Hippolyta sobs. "She can be mortally wounded! One day my daughter will die, and it is because of you!" She raises a fist to the sky and curses Aphrodite.

Steve doesn't have more than a few seconds to even attempt to wrap any of this around his head before two figures appear: the servant of Athena, who is scowling, and a featureless human woman, who is, apparently, made only of light. The latter slowly arranges itself into a very ethereal likeness of Diana. Hippolyta drops to her knees and presses her brow to the ground. "I beg your forgiveness," she half-whispers.

A few moments pass. Servant glares at Diana-likeness; Hippolyta prostrates herself weeping; Diana-likeness smiles impassively. Steve breaks the silence. This is getting ridiculous. "Uh, hi. Not really sure what's going on here, but if it's okay I'm gonna go find my better half and…"

The light-lady speaks. Her voice is soothing, and he doesn't even realize he's taken a seat and relaxed a little, right away. "I am an avatar of Aphrodite," the image says. Then she turns her attention to Hippolyta. "Please, sit and be comforted." Hippolyta moves herself onto a cushion on the floor, keeping her eyes averted. "Forgive," she whispers tentatively.

Aphrodite ignores her. "You have proven yourself worthy of my gifts to the Daughter of Themiscira," she tells Steve. You have brought my gift to its fruition."

"It was an unwise gift, then," the servant replies angrily. "It caused her to act selfishly."

The goddess smiles serenely. "Tell me the name of anyone among us who does not act selfishly in the name of love...except perhaps, for my so-called wise sister."

"My mistress is appealing to her uncle as we speak," retorts the servant.

"He is my uncle as well, and his mind is rarely changed once he has entered into a contract."

Aphrodite waves her hand and produces a scroll, which once again reveals a scene. Steve thinks to himself that he's glad there's no technology for this in his world. A whole lot of damage could be done if someone had this kind of access to people's privacy. An armored woman with clear, gray eyes stands in front of a dark throne. The voice Steve heard earlier this morning, out on the rock, is speaking. "Your argument is valid and wise," it says. "However, there will always be danger in this world, just as in the other eight. Olympus will always be challenged; heroes will always come forth to defend us. It is of no matter."

The scroll disappears. Aphrodite looks smug and the servant looks furious.

"Anyone?" Steve asks.

"I gave your beloved two gifts, child," Aphrodite replies. She is in my image. This gift was immediate upon her birth. The other gift, I knew, would take many millennia to bloom in full. Her capacity for love is boundless. Others have seen how she freely and effortlessly gives of herself."

"She's renounced her duty," the servant interjects.

"She has done no such thing," Aphrodite says, evenly. Her powers are not diminished. She is mortal, but it will take a great act of will from something more powerful than Cronos to snuff out her life. Sometimes love has to be selfish. Sometimes love is more powerful than wisdom, by necessity." She turns to Steve again. "You are mortal. Diana has made a pact with Hades. When you shed your mortal coil, she shall shed her own. She has chosen to end her battle for the Earth and Olympus, when the time comes. Her soul and yours will spend eternity in bliss, in the Fields of Elysia. Should Zeus decree it, the dust of your mortal bodies will take their places among the heavens, as a reminder that there is a greater power in this universe than any just or unjust war."

She turns to face the servant again. "Go to my sister. Tell her that Diana has shown immense wisdom. She understands that without love, there is no further reason to fight."

The two figures vanish. Hippolyta sobs quietly into her folded arms. Steve kneels beside her and puts his hand on her head for a few moments, until the queen's breath becomes even and slow. He leaves her to sleep and goes off to look for Diana.

It takes him some time, but eventually he finds her sitting on the rock at the gateways to Olympus, where they'd been that morning, arms wrapped around her calves. It seems like just an ordinary stretch of lonely beach now, the kind you'd find just before a storm. The air is warm and heavy. She's wearing the same, shell-colored tunic she'd worn the day they arrived here. The wind whips her hair back. She appears not to notice the heavy salt spray or the sand blowing everywhere. He sits next to her and says nothing.

"It was selfish and irresponsible," she says, eventually. I was created to protect the world.

"I've been thinking about it," he says. "Every fight's got to end sometime. I'm pretty familiar with making sacrifices and hard choices. I've done it before. But you're not irresponsible. No one has the right to ask you to fight forever. No one can ask you to do anything forever."

She looks at her wrist and plays with one of the thorn-ripped ribbons on her bracelet. "Of course they can. I've chosen to risk my life, just as you chose all those decades ago. The risk of death is not as frightening to me as the risk of an eternity without you."

"Do these ever come off again?" He touches the bracelet and gestures toward the necklace with his head. The bracelet pricks his finger.

"When we are married, they are to be removed by you," she replies. "I'm ready to go back. Let's go home, find a home. I no longer care where. Brick and concrete crumble to dust." She slips her hand under his shirt, and rests it over his heart. "This is home."

When Steve opens his eyes again, the 05:00 alarm is beeping. Diana is curled up next to him in his bed. They are naked. When they arrive at their daily morning meeting, and he asks what's happened while they were away, Bruce looks at him quizzically. "Since you guys left the building two days ago? Not much."


	32. Chapter 32

Diana is bored. She won't admit it; she would never deliberately hurt anyone for whom she cares; it's just that she'd much rather be flying somewhere, taking hairpin turns in all directions, maybe dodging arrows or spears than choosing a color of nail polish for her toes. Pepper had thought spending what she calls "girl time" while Tony and Steve were on assignment would be fun, though. And really, Diana likes Pepper, and considers her a dear friend. Diana is reasonably sure that Pepper would not think testing out how much of a freefall dive into the Long Island Sound that the invisible jet could handle would be a good alternative activity.

This most certainly does NOT mean, though, that Diana had been hoping for the thundering crash that just made the entire mansion shake, the shattering of glass as a small army of mercenaries descended upon them. "Run. Hide." Diana orders Pepper. Diana dives into a hallway closet. In the confusion of the moment, no one notices right away that Wonder Woman is standing balanced upon a gigantic chandelier. Three cables scroll down from a hovering helicopter; Diana throws her lasso across the room, loops the cables together, and pulls hard. The six men who had begun to descend along the cables crash into the glass and plaster that covers the floor below, smashing into the wet bar. Bullets fly. Wonder Woman shifts all of her weight into the chandelier to give herself a swinging boost, sends herself sailing across the room, and hurls herself toward four more men, fists-first. They fall off of the ledge they'd just landed upon a moment ago. She lands on the floor, and three more men are upon her as others go running past. She pulls back her fist to punch one, and another catches her by the arm before she can attack. Instead, she allows the first man to punch her, allowing her to push her weight into the one behind her. She flips him headfirst into her original target. The third assailant is looking for an opportune moment, but fails, and instead pulls out a dagger. Wonder Woman grabs his wrist and twists it hard, forcing him to drop it to the floor, but then someone else delivers a sweeping kick to her knees, and she falls backward. Grabbing what's left of a table leg from alongside her, she jumps to her feet, but there is no one in the room to fight. A loud explosion echoes from the level below. Wonder Woman runs to the stairs in the direction of the blast. It is one of Tony Stark's private labs. There is a hole in the far wall, and clearly, something has been taken. She hears the helicopter take off.

She finds Pepper in the safe-room, shaken up but unharmed. "Are they gone?"

"They're gone;" Wonder Woman replies, "but they got whatever they came for."

"Tell you what," Tony says. The Avengers are sitting at a table in a meeting room, waiting for Director Fury, a few hours later. It is four o'clock in the morning. "You ladies certainly know how to have a party." He is not smiling.

"What did they take?"

"That's what's weird," Tony replies. "Junk. Old stuff. Nothing useful."

Director Fury walks in and places a large, ceremonial-looking dagger on the center of the table. It is the one Diana had wrenched out of an attacker's hand. "This was left behind from the attack on Stark's house," he says. Someone went to a lot of trouble to steal this item. A digital image of a silver sphere, about the size of a baseball hovers over the table. Its center glows bright orange. Before anyone can ask, Tony offers, "Yeah, I'm not really sure what that is." It generates a hell of a lot of energy though. I was planning to play with that."

Thor and Diana glance at each other, alarmed. Diana picks up the dagger and says, "This is very, very bad."

"I'm so glad you concur, your highness," Fury's voice is dripping with sarcasm. "Would either of you otherworldly royals care to share with the class?"

"It is Auga," Thor says. Diana continues, "Where I am from, I've heard it called the Mind's Eye, or the Omniscient Eye. It is the key to a map; the map tells where to find pieces of a pre-Titan," she catches Thor's eye and corrects herself, "alien relic that, once intact, imbues its possessor with the powers of all of the gods…" she trails off, tracing a finger over the intricate etchings on the dagger's hilt.

"I'm guessing there's more," Bruce says.

Thor adds that the last time Auga activated, it was in one of the other realms, about 10,000 years ago, when the moons of the realms aligned. Nothing remains of the civilization that attempted to wield its power. He speculates that another such alignment will happen in one Earth-months' time. "Anyone in the universe could be behind the theft. They must not be allowed to find the artifact pieces to assemble."

"Anyone could have it, yes." Diana replies. "But based on its markings, this is a very specific dagger for a very specific use. I'm not sure how they found out where the Eye was located, I'm not sure how it ended up in Tony's supply closet, but, either the Knights Templar have stolen it, or someone else has implicated them it its theft."


	33. Chapter 33

Diana, Clint, and Steve are sitting in a large, nondescript sedan, which is parked on a dusty street across from a prison in a small city in Mexico. They are dressed in their civilian identities. Clint, in the driver's seat, peers past Steve at the front gate, which is guarded by a few bored and angry-looking officers. They turn away most of the people who try to get in to visit the prisoners. "Well, what's our move, Cap?" Their mission is to help one of Clint's former associates escape—someone who's had dealings with the occultist power structures of the Templars while he'd worked for the British Secret Service. Through passed-on messages, he had indicated he may be able to help. The three have been sitting here for over an hour, watching loiterers, police officers, street peddlers: the denizens of this impoverished city whose chief employers are the prison and the drug dealers. Somewhere nearby, a church bell rings out that it is 14:00. "I have an idea," Diana speaks up from the back seat. "Steve, slide into the driver's seat, Clint, follow me."

Twenty minutes later, Clint, who is wearing a priest's frock, and Diana stroll back towards the car and pause there so that Steve can speak to them. "Let me get my phone out. I want a picture of this." Ignoring Steve's comment, Clint leans into the passenger window and gestures to the road, pretending to give directions. "My buddy Arthur's in need of spiritual guidance," he replies. Also his girlfriend's parents won't let her near him without a reliable chaperone. Plus, she's a little hysterical. She might cause a 'distracting scene.' Speaking of which Diana, you don't exactly look like the kind of girl who'd give time of day to a chronically violent drunk."

Diana walks to the trunk of the car, opens it, and digs through her duffel. She produces a pair of high heels, which she swaps out from her sandals. Then she rips about five inches off the hem of her skirt, about three off her t-shirt, and teases out her ponytail. "Better?" Clint nods once.

Steve looks them over. "Well that gets you two in, but how do you all get out?" Clint reaches through the passenger window and opens the glove compartment. He produces a small brown package. "He's gonna be really, really sick. Just be ready to drive." Steve groans inwardly as he watches them approach the guards' gate and get admitted inside.

Just under an hour later, there is commotion at the prison gate. An ambulance pulls up; a crowd of prisoners gets beaten back as a priest, a panicking young woman, and a stretcher are rushed out of the yard. As he watches the scene and turns on the car's ignition, Steve wonders at what point in his professional life breaking legitimate prisoners out of jail became okay. He reaches behind him to open the door to the back seat. Diana yells something that sounds indignant in Spanish and slaps a paramedic hard. Guards come rushing in as Clint loads his friend's body off the stretcher and onto his shoulder, and runs toward the idling car. He shoves his friend into the back seat and then jumps into the passenger seat next to Steve. A moment later, Diana dives into the back seat and says, "Go."

They are in a room in a run-down motel, somewhere in what Clint has accurately described as Quien Sabe Donde, Mexico. "How're you feeling, buddy," he says as Arthur opens his eyes and pushes a few strands of long, dirty, blond hair from his face. "Like shite," he mumbles. "Like the bloody O'Toole Pipe Band's marching through my skull, playing a dirge." He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and holds his head in his hands for a few moments. Then he looks up at his friend and grins. "What a ride! Got anything to drink?"

Diana walks over with a bottle of water. "It'll do. Thanks love," he says, taking it from her.

"We have some clean clothes for you, too," Diana says. But time is of the essence. Can I get anything else for you before we get to business?"

Arthur rubs the stubble on his face and smirks at her. "Give me a little time and I can think of all sorts of things you can do for me, pet, but I don't think grumpy over there's gonna stand for it." He jerks his head toward Steve, who has been watching the entire scene warily. "I'd be the least of your problems," Steve says. "Get yourself cleaned up. We've got work to do."

Late that night, Steve finds Diana sitting the hood of the car, looking up at the clear sky. She moves over to make room for him. "He's odious," she says, but at least we have a starting point now." She leans her head on his shoulder, and he puts his arm around her.

"Yeah. It looks like Clint and his friend are meeting Natasha in Scotland, Thor's gonna be in Asgard gathering more information about the Eye, and Tony and Bruce are staying in New York for research.

"What about us?"

"We fly out to Rome tonight, make our way out to Venice, and wait for our contact," he replies.

Diana suggests leaving via New York and taking her jet, but Steve has already asked about that. "It would be easier in a lot of ways, but there's just no time. Director Fury wants us wheels-up in two hours."


	34. Chapter 34

Military jets are rarely comfortable, but in a SHIELD hellicarrier, it's hard to even notice you're in a moving vehicle. Steve has no idea what time it is, or even what day it is anymore. Just a few days ago, he was agonizing over what to get Diana for Christmas. Or maybe it was a week or more ago. It's pretty sad that so much of his personal life, even now, seems based around a mixture of procrastination and indecision. Now he's here on a bunk in a glorified, flying dormitory. Diana is sound asleep, her head on his chest. He plays with a strand of hair that's come loose from her long braid. He thinks about reaching over to look at his tablet and find the date, but it doesn't really matter, he guesses. He's had worse Christmas seasons, certainly far lonelier ones, than this. Why is this bothering him at all?

Maybe it's the fact that this is the second Christmas in a row for him that actually *has* been happy, made him actually feel like there was another year to look forward to. He glances down at her. "Shouldn't have done that," he thinks, smiling to himself. "Now I'm not gonna be able to look away." He wishes he wasn't wearing a sweatshirt, so he could feel her breath on his skin. She inhales deeply and smiles in her sleep. Her left hand is resting on his abdomen, and he watches the engagement ring on her finger rise and fall, rise and fall with his breath. She looks so peaceful. He plays with the nectarine seed hanging from the ribbon around her neck and wonders how it hasn't ripped or fallen apart by now. Then again, he also wonders how her tolerance for being around him hasn't done that, as well. "Maybe that's the point," he thinks. And he knows she really doesn't want anything, anyhow. He also knows that is most definitely NOT the point. He remembers a story one of the privates in his Company told them once, about the disaster of his having taken it literally when his girl said that all she wanted for her birthday was for him to come home to her between boot camp and deployment. He laughs at the memory and Diana startles awake.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart; I didn't mean to wake you." She only smiles gently, sleepily. "Now you're stuck having to talk to me. You WILL be sorry," she jokes, and shifts herself up closer to kiss him. He kisses her back and lets his mouth linger a little. "Who says I have to talk to you?" She moves her hands down his torso and he sits up so they can help each other undress. They make love in slow silence. He is amazed that each time they are together like this, it feels like an eternity has passed since the time before. At their last briefing, Diana had explained to the team that the Eye allowed its wielder not just to move backwards and forwards through time, but to bend it, change events, rewrite history. Moments like this, times when they are alone, whether it's making love or folding laundry, can afford to stretch out a little longer, he thinks aloud.

"You don't really mean that," she says.

"Not literally," he agrees. "But I'm pretty sure we missed Christmas between time zones."

"Christmas isn't for another two days, Mediterranean time," she replies. She frowns for a moment. "I was just starting to understand American Christmas." She doesn't appear especially upset. He knows she's been trying hard to understand the tradition. She's told him she never quite got the hang of it during the War, either. "You never did tell me what you wanted," he says.

She kisses his chest, just over his heart. "Oh, what any 2000-year-old American icon wants: a happy fiancé; to get to help save the world from annihilation successfully; maybe a nice dinner…then a couple of days alone with you, where neither of us have to put on any clothes."

"One and three? In the bag," he grins. "I'll do my best to make the other two things happen." He kisses the palm of her hand, and cuts his finger on her thorn bracelet yet again. "Ow! It'd be a fantastic gift to not mutilate myself on that every day," he blurts. "Smart, boy-o," he thinks. "Very culturally sensitive."

Diana doesn't seem to register any kind of slight. Instead, she says, thoughtfully, "You are Catholic; there are many priests in Rome; if you wish to get married for Christmas, before we meet the contact, I will give that to you."

"I can't say I'd thought of that," he says, trailing off, considering it. A few seconds pass. "No," he finally says. He's still committed to doing things, as he considers them, the 'right' way. "Nope, I want us to have a real wedding, witnessed by the people who love us, preferably in the same little church in Brooklyn where my folks tied the knot."

She smiles widely. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For telling me what you want. I have my gift from you, now." She winds her legs between his and kisses him. He feels some invisible boundary between them—one he hadn't even known was there, dissolve. Her body softens into his, and he is swept away. How does she do this? How does she manage to find these spaces in his mind and heart that he didn't even know were there? Sometimes, Steve thinks, time really does give them a gift, like right now and slows down for them. This is her gift to him: making sure he is fully alive in every single 'right now.'


	35. Chapter 35

Steve figures that Diana has taken what feels like the 20th lap around the running trail, during the world's least challenging marathon. She's pretending to be a jogger—just a regular, human woman, getting exercise. This means not getting even close to her top speed. This morning, their instructions had been for her to pick up a 200-Euro note some other runner would drop, catch up with the person, say her line, and receive written details of their contact meeting in exchange. "How does Natasha do this as a living?" she'd asked Steve earlier. Spy work is boring. She said she'd never understood the appeal during the war. A man jogs past her, leaving the long-awaited bill a few feet behind him. She picks it up, jogs over, and calls, "Sir?" He turns around and smiles. Diana suddenly forgets her line. Steve sees her mouth form into one word: "You!" She looks as if she's seen a ghost, except he knows from experience that ghosts don't bother her.

The man frowns. "Do I know you, ma'am?"

"Oh, no. You wouldn't want to lose this," she recovers herself. "That's a few missed gondola rides."

"Indeed," the man says, passing her a small envelope. He smiles and resumes his run. She looks over to the fountain where Steve is pretending to study a newspaper. She runs off in the opposite direction, and Wonder Woman appears moments later, racing after the man Steve had just watched her speaking with.

Only, she's not the same Wonder Woman. He saw this costume in one of the unredacted files the team had been given to read about her last year: bathing suit, red boots, gold tiara and bracelet, very much a spectacle. She's attracting attention. People are starting to snap pictures with their cell phones. What is she thinking? As a fellow soldier, he also has little clue as to what to do as a spy. Give chase so she has backup? Head back to their room? Best probably to diffuse the escalating situation. "Oh, hell," he mutters, and runs after her.

It only takes a few seconds to catch up to where Wonder Woman has cornered the man. "Steve?"

"Yes," says the man carefully, at the same time Steve says "Yeah, what's going on here?"

"I can't believe it's really you! I know you're not, but you look just like him!" she is beaming at him.

Then he registers the other changes: Wonder Woman's hair only goes down to her mid-back, and the arm bracers are much smaller, only covering her wrists. Steve feels panic creep in for a moment, until he ascertains that some things haven't changed: ring? Check. Desiccated fruit pit? Check. Finger-destroying bracelet? Check. Still his girl. He makes a mental note to get over himself as he watches her hug the stranger.

"Steve Rogers," Diana says, please meet "Agent Steve Trevor, grandson of the late Col. Trevor, with whom I worked a long, long time ago."

"Pleasure," Steve R. says, holding out his hand. He gestures to what looks like a small alley, encouraging them to walk a bit further away from the proverbial limelight. Agent Trevor looks a little dumbfounded. He's saying, "How are you so young? My grandfather has all these stories in his journals about you from World War II."

"We Amazonians don't change much." Diana is smiling widely.

"Speaking of changing much," Steve begins, "how did you, uh, y'know…" and gestures at her uniform and makes a pantomime of what he thinks indicates a haircut. Wonder Woman looks at him blankly. "Never mind, forget it." He turns back to the living ghost of someone from Diana's past—someone he shouldn't feel this threatened by. "I'd better go. I was meeting my fiancée here, but I must've missed her."

"I should also go," Wonder Woman says, straightening a little. "Your fiancée is my contact." Steve smirks, and suppresses the urge to shake his head. Neither of them are good at the whole "lying easily to maintain cover" thing. But Agent Trevor laughs and replies, "You mean Miss Prince? You can drop the charade. My grandfather might not ever have put two and two together, but," he glances at Diana, "I did the first time I read his private journals." They agree to meet again as arranged in the instructions Agent Trevor has handed off, and part ways.

That evening, Diana is atypically withdrawn. She stands on the balcony of their hotel room, looking out into the distance. "We don't have to stay here," Steve suggests when he joins her. We've got a little down time until tomorrow. We can go out if you want. Diana smiles sadly and shakes her head "no."

"Feel like talking about it?" She doesn't the question right away. He stands behind her and places each hand on the balcony rail, and kisses the top of her head. He is sure she is thinking about her "other" Steve. He feels foolish about the way his heart seems to be thumping all the way down to his stomach. He doesn't want to ask the question he feels like he ought to ask. They are in one of the most romantic cities on the planet on Christmas Eve, they are alone, they are in love, and she is likely thinking about some other man. Even her costume changed when she thought she saw him today.

"I didn't love him, Steve. He was a very dear friend." He exhales slowly, his shoulders soften a little. "I wasn't gonna ask."

"I know," she says, wistfully. "But I could sense you were thinking it. I didn't really get the concept of love as something real, back then. All I had was this beautiful, brave soul to protect and fight alongside. He was a living beacon for me, during a very dark time. I think he was really infatuated with Wonder Woman; he never really saw that part of me as a real person though. And as his ensign, I was a source of worry. He used to tell me that if it weren't for the War, he'd think I was lost, constantly looking for home. He said later on, toward the end of the war, that I'd helped him find his home when I introduced him to his wife."

They stand together, looking over and past the city for a while. "I looked for you everywhere," she eventually continues. "Those canals down there, they eventually run out into the ocean. All water finds water. I couldn't find you. And there was so much death everywhere." She places her left hand over Steve's and squeezes it. The thorns on her bracelet sting when they pierce his skin, but he ignores it. He knows all too well what it feels like when everything lays wasted before you. "You do what you can," he says, knowing how ineffectual he sounds. "You go in knowing you won't be able to save everyone."

She shakes her head no. "My undertaking was to protect this world so that my own would remain unaffected by Man's violence. You weren't here at the end. You didn't see the trucks crammed with people, all of them wearing stars. They rounded up everyone they could at the end. They weren't going to surrender without taking as many innocents as they could. You didn't see all those people shot down in front of their loved ones…entire families, even infants. Those camps. I'm not blaming you, or trying to compare nightmares. But it was my task to bear witness to what remained."

Steve hadn't really thought a lot about that aspect of Diana's experience of the War. They'd both borne witness to so many evils; he'd seen so much of what science in the wrong hands could do. However, she had seen the kind of pure evil that ordinary human beings could inflict on one another. Like many war veterans he knows from the forties, she never talks about this. He leads her to a chair on the balcony, and sits down opposite her, holding her hands in his. She has been crying. He ignores the blood drying on his hands where the bracelet had dug in—he doesn't even wipe it off on his jeans. "Tell me," he says. "Tell me, and I will carry some of it for you."


	36. Chapter 36

Captain America is trying to move his fingers and toes, but it’s taking more concentration than he’d like to admit. Oily water and sludge seep down from the edge of his boots and down his legs every time he tries to shift his weight, and that is not helping matters. It is so dark down here, that he really only sees the outlines of things, and an occasional flash of light reflecting off the water from Wonder Woman’s uniform or the colossal-sized spider’s red eyes. Agent Trevor had gotten them as far as the entrance to the catacombs beneath the Biblioteca Nazionale. Technically, there shouldn’t be underground *anything* in Venice, needless to say catacombs. They’re not in the catacombs now. The catacombs are a few miles above them. From the catacombs, they’d shoved aside the remains of dozens of Templars, crawled past a false bottom in a sarcophagus, and kept descending. They are so far down below Venice’s streets and waterways, that he wouldn’t be surprised if they were halfway to Hades right now. It occurs to him that just a month ago, that only would have been a figure of speech. 

 

From Clint and Natasha’s intel, though, this where they’re supposed to be, and they’ve got eyes on the prize: an old but unremarkable-looking weaving loom. It is being guarded by a spider whose body must be about 7 feet across, and whose legs are at least twice as long. It has human hands and, evidently, a bite that causes paralysis. This is why Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America Himself, is a spectator, the proverbial damsel in distress, as Wonder Woman whacks away at Arachne’s arms with the blunt sword she’d grabbed off a skeleton. At least he got a couple of legs off the creature before it bit him. He moves a pinky finger. Progress, at last. 

 

Arachne is down to her last four legs now. This could be over so much more quickly if he could somehow help. Nevertheless, he’s regained about 50% feeling in his extremities by the time Wonder Woman plunges the old sword into the literal belly of the beast. “Are you hurt?” she asks. Can you move yet?”

 

The answers are “no,” and “for the most part,” but Captain America doesn’t have a chance to reply because someone else does, first. “Thank you so much for your cooperation.” They are flanked by a half-dozen men, all of whom have trained their weapons on the two of them. The man who seems to be in charge continues, “Now, if you don’t mind…or even if you do mind.”

 

Wonder Woman drops the sword into the water. Steve can’t really blame her, because he’d do the same if the situation was reversed. Three men are pointing submachine guns at his head, and one more is holding what he now recognizes as a Templar dagger to his jugular. 

 

The leader steps his way through Arachne’s splayed legs and guts, over to the loom, and moves his hand around between and behind the threads. He frowns, looks at the remaining Templar guard, and snaps his fingers. The guard reaches into a bag and hands his leader the Eye of Omniscience. It is vibrating. “Search him.” One of the men pats Steve down. “Not here, sir.” 

 

The leader sneers at Diana. “Well there’s nowhere for her have concealed it. Take the whole thing.” The loom will not budge. The man curses, clearly unsure of his next move. He looks at the eye in his hand, whose light pulses orange. “It’s here somewhere,” he decides. The Eye can’t be wrong. He points to three men and says, “With me.” He says to his assistant and the man with the dagger, “Keep them here,” and the group separates. 

 

Steve sees the corner of Wonder Woman’s mouth twitch. He knows that look. He smirks back, and opens and closes his fists a couple of times to indicate that he can move again. Within thirty seconds, their captors are unconscious.

 

“So the artifact piece isn’t actually in the loom,” he complains. 

 

“It is,” Diana says, walking over to it. Steve makes a conscious effort not to groan. Of course it is. He watches her reach in-between the threads, just as the Templar leader had done, and produce a small, gold, trapezoidal object. She hands it to him. It looks like the base of something. “The loom and its secrets have provenance with Athena,” she explains, “and in her wisdom regarding the greed of mortal men and their gods, she hid it from all but her own women warriors. That’s why I had to be here to retrieve it.”

 

It is mid-morning by the time they are at street-level again, at the employee entrance in the back of the library, where they’d started out. “Anyway, Merry Christmas,” Diana says. “Did you still want to try to go site-seeing?” Steve leans his head against the wall behind him and laughs.


	37. Chapter 37

“The good news first,” Agent Coulson begins. The Avengers are video conferencing. “Thor is absolutely certain that all the relic pieces are on Earth, so that narrows down the search. He’s coming back sometime today and bringing Sif along to assist. We’ve got one piece; we think there are two more out there somewhere.”

“What if we destroy the one piece we have,” Steve asks. “Wouldn’t that just end things now?” Coulson explains that the pieces cannot be destroyed. “Plus, he adds,” just one piece and the Eye are powerful in their own right. We need to get on top of this.”

“So what’s the bad news,” Bruce asks.

“The bad news is that the Templars aren’t the only group interested in this thing,” Natasha says. Clint and his colleague are still working the Templar angle, but we found a picture of what it all looks like, put together.” She holds a page from a book up to the camera. It is of a pyramid, inside of which is the Eye of Omniscience. Tony lets out a low whistle.

“The Illuminati,” Coulson says. “As far as we know, the two groups are working against, not with each other, but we’re not certain.” He reads out everyone’s new assignments:

 

“Hawkeye and Black Widow: Use MI6 as your base of operations and move through Northern Europe. Keep working the Templar angle. 

“Tony and Bruce: you’re still Stateside. You’ll be compiling intelligence and coming up with a way to neutralize this thing, should it become active.

“Wonder Woman and Cap: our best intelligence now is that Illuminati have made themselves a presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Maria will meet you with detailed instructions. “Thor and Sif will be on standby. Intercept the Illuminati agents, gather intelligence, and get the next relic piece if it’s there. You’re wheels-up midnight.” The video feed cuts off.

Twenty-four hours later, Wonder Woman and Captain America are standing at the edge of what looks like a major archeological dig in the middle of the jungle. Captain America begins to study possible points of entry. “They’re pretty well fortified,” he tells her. This won’t be easy.

Diana is distracted. She takes a step over to a flowering vine, and says, “This is extinct. It shouldn’t be here.” She touches one of the blossoms, and the ground opens up, swallowing her. Steve jumps in after her without thinking twice, and free falls through silt, hanging tree roots, and empty space for what feels like at least a couple of miles, until Diana catches him. 

They are standing in a room that looks even older than the above temple. An enormous altar is at the far end of the room. On the altar is a stone table, over which is draped a ceremonial cloth covered in Illuminati symbols. Behind the table are seven men, one of whom is very old. 

“Ah! Excellent! We’ve been waiting for you!” The old man says. “You can call me Henrik.” He has a thick, German accent. “I understand that either you or the Templars have some items I need. Have you brought them?” 

“Why don’t you show us what you’ve found, first,” Diana replies evenly. Henrik smiles condescendingly and steps off of the altar towards them. “Oh, my dear princess,” he says. I haven’t found anything yet. That’s why we wanted you here—to help us.” He looks from her to Steve. “What a truly delightful privilege,” he continues. “I must say you’ve both held up far better than I have, but once my artifact is together again, I can change so very much about my life, the world…” He trails off. 

“Anyway, come, let me show you,” he continues, and offers Diana his arm. She refuses it, which doesn’t seem to faze him. He leads them to a column near the wall, telling them, we’ve translated much of what is written on the walls and tablets in here. Classical Greek, Hieroglyphs, Sanskrit, even, if you can believe it.” He chuckles to himself. “This column here, though, has eluded us. Princess?” 

She places her hand over the carvings on the stone column. “It’s Atlantean,” she says. “It describes the places in here that are traps. I wouldn’t touch anything if I were your men.” Henrik slaps Steve on the back and laughs out loud. “She’s absolutely priceless, isn’t she?” He turns serious again and shakes his head. “No, we’ve found the traps, and neutralized them one way or another.” He gestures around the room. In the torchlight, Steve sees dozens of dead men, all shot through with spikes or spears, some missing body parts, some partly burnt. “No,” he continues, in fact, we’ve come to realize that no normal man can handle the magic in many of these traps. So you can understand then why we need you, my dear. And besides, you haven’t told me everything that you’ve just read from those carvings. How do you get the artifact piece from the idol,” he asks, gesturing to the huge statue behind the ceremonial table.

“You don’t,” she replies. If you remove the relic piece from the idol’s bowl, the water in the bowl will flood the entire room. You’re right, no *man* can successfully retrieve the relic. I’m sorry you came out all this way just to be disappointed.”

“I was,” Henrik tells her, but now that you and Captain America are here, I’m feeling far more optimistic.” He gestures for the six robed men to come forward. Steve rushes at them with his shield, but Henrik holds a hand up, recites an incantation, and the shield flies off in the opposite direction. Diana grabs her lasso but before she can throw it, Henrik says a single word and it flies from her hands, hovers in the air for a moment, and Henrik takes hold of it. 

The robed men multiply three-fold and surround them. Diana and Steve fight off as many as they can, but the Illuminati priests are at least as strong as Diana herself. It doesn’t take long before the two of them are subdued. 

 

“Do you know what the problem is with Templars?” Henrik says casually, as he binds Diana with her own lasso. “Their problem is that they think small. “They’re relics in themselves, sworn to keep their secrets and treasures hidden away for the true believers, eventually to punish the unworthy. My masters are much more globally interested. They don’t really care about what anyone believes; they care about what they can control.”

“So you’re not in charge,” Steve says. “That must be frustrating for you.” He’s doing his best to keep his voice level, but he’s watching Diana. “I sit at the right hand of God himself,” Henrik replies, shrugging. I don’t need personal glory when I have unlimited power.” Then he smiles and says, without even looking at Diana, “I wouldn’t bother, dear. You have no control over that lasso of yours right now. It won’t let you go.” He takes a step back to look over his prisoners. “Now then. You,” he says, looking at Steve, “are going to be a good boy and get my artifact piece from that bowl the idol is holding.” Before Steve can argue, Henrik nods to his priests. One of them comes forward with a dish full of what looks like red dust. When Diana sees it, she says nothing, but her eyes widen and she shakes her head. “Would you like to explain to your lover what this is, or shall I,” he asks. 

“It’s ash and clay from Themyscira, from a time before the land was blessed by Demeter and the Amazonians came to be.” Diana’s voice quavers, just a little bit. After a few moments of silence, Henrik frowns. “You really aren’t very forthcoming today, are you? You see, we know our ancient traditions well here. Don’t inhale this, Princess. If not for the ancient waters contained in that idol’s bowl up there to revive you, the effects of this could be permanent. He nods again to the monk, who blows it into Diana’s face, and she is immediately unconscious.” Steve yells out Diana’s name as the priests carry her over to the adorned table below the statue, and lay her on top of it.

“She has, oh, about 10 minutes, my boy.” Henrik says to Steve as he unchains his hands. The thing about clay golems is if they’re properly dried out, the right incantation is supplied, etc. etc., they turn to dust. Chop, chop.”


	38. Chapter 38

The climb isn’t the hard part. There are runes all over the idol, and Steve has discovered that some of them, when touched, trigger other problems. Specifically, they trigger creatures like the ones they’d fought in New York to appear. They aren’t especially difficult to fight, but they cost precious time, and have already knocked him back to the ground. He glances over at Diana before he begins another ascent. She is completely still. For all intents right now, she is dead. “Focus, Rogers,” he tells himself. 

The third time he triggers a rune and the beasts come flying out at him, he is knocked off of his foothold, but Thor catches him mid-air. “Where the hell’ve you been, man?” Steve asks. Below, a woman is fighting off the monks, who have once again multiplied. Steve and Thor continue to climb up the idol, fighting off the creatures. When they reach the large bowl, they indeed find a piece of the artifact: a gold triangle. The bowl, however, is completely dry. Steve curses loudly. “Don’t let them have this,” he says to Thor, and drops straight down to the ground. He somersaults onto his feet and takes a running leap at Henrik. “You want that thing?!” He shouts, pointing at Thor, who is now at foot of the idol with the relic piece. “You want it? You help her or so help me god it gets launched past Asgard and into some god dammed abyss!” He grabs Henrik up by the neck and starts to squeeze.

Henrik looks startled, but he doesn’t seem panicked. “Then you’d better put me down,” he gasps. On his feet again, he straightens his shirt, looks at his watch, and says, “We still have about 75 seconds. We have already drained the water. It killed many of our men, and none of them got past the creatures. Several even escaped into the world. My terms have changed. Give me the other piece as well.”

“This isn’t a negotiation. Give me the damned antidote.” Steve doesn’t care whether he sounds panicked.

Henrik reaches into his jacket pocket and produces a small, wax-sealed glass bottle. “Medicine is just astounding isn’t it, Captain?” Such a small amount of fluid, just plain water, can be the difference between life and death. He twirls the bottle’s neck between two fingers. “Your woman or your world? Which will it be? Will you even care about saving the world once you’ve let your beloved die? Would your beloved forgive you for choosing to save her over saving the world?” 

Steve wants to tear the man’s head off, but realizes that if he attacks him, the bottle will drop and shatter. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Thor and his colleague finish off the last of the monks. Then, as if in slow motion, Henrik lets the bottle drop from between his fingers, and Steve shouts and lunges to catch it, but Henrik catches it again. “Tick tock, twenty seconds.” 

The next few moments are a blur. Steve lunges for Henrik, who shouts an incantation and screams out in pain. Steve lifts up off the floor and goes flying across the room, thrown by some invisible force, and smashes against a wall. The world goes black. When shape and color return, he purposely hits the back of his head against the wall and squeezes his eyes shut again. His entire body is cold, except for hot tears beginning to run down his face. “No, no, no.”

A woman with a very firm but not unkind voice says, “She is safe.” He looks up. “I am Lady Sif,” the woman says, extending her hand to help him to his feet. Thor is standing a step or two behind her, with Diana draped in his arms, unconscious, but once again breathing. Steve accepts her help up, and then grabs her up in a hug. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you.”


	39. Chapter 39

They have been in New York for a week, and Diana is getting nervous. “We have to get back out there,” she has pleaded to Agent Coulson, Director Fury, and Assistant Director Hill. They’re not budging on the decision, and Steve is not about to argue on her behalf. As it is, Steve has not really let her out of his sight since they left the DRC. “I’m okay,” she’s assured him.

“I think we ought to go back to your mother and let her look you over.” 

“I do not need a hole punctured into my cranium!” Diana retorts. That silences Steve for a few moments, and she feels pleased that she has won the argument, and has done so with a modern colloquialism. Steve looks genuinely baffled for a little while. In fact, he closes his eyes, as if to concentrate hard on her words. She is triumphant.

“You need to see your mother like you need a hole in your head?” he says, slowly, as if he is working out a riddle. Diana nods, continuing to scowl at him. “That is what I just said.” Steve laughs so hard he begins to cough.

“Sweetheart,” he finally says once he can breathe again, “You aren’t medically cleared, and probably won’t be for at least a few more days. The rest of the team is on this, figuring out where to go next. We’ve still got more than two weeks until the moons align properly.”

She softens her expression a little. 

“I tell you what,” he continues, drawing her into an embrace. “We’ve got the down time; I need it too, if we’re gonna be completely honest. Let’s use it to seriously look for a new place, maybe nail down a date, and you can learn some of the finer points of modern American clichés.”

She relents. “That sounds nice,” she says. “But I don’t understand why you find this so funny.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. Nothing’s funny.”

“Clearly, you think something is,” she argues. “You’re trying not to smile, and your abdominal and throat muscles are slightly clenched.” She has trouble maintaining her attitude of righteous indignation, though. 

He doesn’t reply. Instead, he gets up and opens his filing cabinet, and produces the file folder containing the information they’ve been gathering about apartments. When he returns, he sits on the couch and puts an arm around her, and hands her some pamphlets. I think I like these as my top three,” he says. 

A few days later, Steve relaxes a little bit. For Diana, this means she no longer senses that he has been waiting to fall asleep until after she has, nor does he seem obsessed with watching her sleep. “I’m alright,” she tells him, time after time. He has been drawing her as she sleeps, trying to bring the act of breathing into still life. “I’m alive. No matter what Henrik thought, it is impossible for me to revert to clay. It’s as possible as you reverting back to a fetus state.” She puts her hand on his, careful not to scratch him with the thorns on her bracelet. “I promise, my love. I promise.” The entire first week they are home, Steve rests his head just over her heart each time they finish making love. “Still there,” he says. “Yes, my darling love, I’m still here. I promise.”

They spend time packing boxes, condensing their things down to just Diana’s apartment until their lease begins in May. Diana wants to move in together in May, the same month they first met two years prior. “See? I too am capable of sentimentality,” she teases. Steve knows she is being kind to him. When he eventually passes, she will not have to be without him for very long. It doesn’t work the other way, though. So a date is set for the first week in November. When this crisis is over, they can plan for the wedding in earnest. Neither of them voices the caveat: assuming the world survives that long, and time isn’t ripped apart. “One moment at a time,” he reminds himself. Every moment a universe of potential.”

Meanwhile, he is pleased that Diana seems to have found a kindred spirit in Thor’s friend, Sif. He overhears them visiting, comparing notes about life on Earth. Diana is fascinated and hopeful over the prospect of equality among the sexes on the battlefield. A product of his time, Steve often forgets, at least on some level, just how much of an anathema it is for Diana to be expected to take on duties that he’d been brought up to see as “women’s domain.” He’d always thought of himself as pretty enlightened in that regard, but evidently some things are well-ingrained. On Themyscira, he was considered the weaker, less evolved sex and most of the Amazonians treated him accordingly: perfectly civil with varying degrees of condescension. He does his best to be sensitive to the times when his old fashioned values and her, well, ancient ones come at odd angles with each other. She certainly lets him know in no uncertain terms if he crosses the line, but her new friend really seems to “get it.” 

Both women find the idea of finding someone to walk Diana down the aisle ridiculous. He silently thanks whatever gods are in charge for Diana’s willingness to participate in what she calls “the marriage ritual.” He wonders whether they switched roles in all this, at some point. He’s not sure if there are constantly shifting boundaries between falling back on the assumptions about the gender roles he’s always known, reversing them, or simply doing the work of compromising in a way that suits both their wants. Most of the time, he concludes that it’s option “C.” He’s certainly aware that Diana’s making lots of compromises. He reminds himself that they want the same thing when all is said and done, as he absent-mindedly moves his thumb over the space where his hand keeps scraping against that damned bracelet. Diana swears she is unaware this being an issue, EVER, until them. He guesses mothers-in-law must not change much, no matter the place or circumstances. When he catches himself going over that spot, he laughs quietly and continues about his day.


	40. Chapter 40

“Why are we constantly underground, lately,” Steve asks no one in particular. The Avengers team has been winding through what feels like endless, labyrinthine tunnels beneath the Great Wall of China.

“You were expecting a big, easily located, mapped building?” Tony snaps back. Even Bruce, who is excellent at remaining calm out of necessity, is clenching his fists and jaw at this point. “Shut up, tin can,” Steve growls back.

“It’s the energy in this place,” Diana explains. She can feel it in the walls, vibrating around her. “Whatever stone lines these walls, whatever some of the runes on them signify, they’re creating a negative energy field.”

 

Natasha says “Shh! Stop.” She hears something. There is movement just around the left corner. Thor readies his hammer, Tony’s suit begins to light up. A small boy skips toward Steve and tugs at his shield, beckoning him to kneel down. “Are you okay kid? Let’s help you out of here and find your folks.” 

Instead, the child presses a six-inch, wand-shaped quartz crystal to Steve’s chest, gesturing for him to take it. It glows yellow. Apatite, the boy says happily. For the future. He beckons Diana over, takes her hand, and loosely weaves a sprig of rosemary between the thorns of her courtship bracelet. Steve is shocked that the child doesn’t hurt himself on it. “For remembrance,” the boy says. He takes another small crystal, which Diana recognizes as smokey quartz, out of his pocket and waves it over Steve’s head and Diana’s hands. “Protection from negativity,” he says. Then he laughs and runs past the group, and vanishes.

“Okay, this place is now officially bizarre,” Clint mutters. “Diana, any idea what just happened?” Diana shakes her head no. “Not entirely.” She is aware, though, that the group’s agitation level seems to have lowered. They move on and turn left, the same direction the boy had come from. 

When they turn the corner, they step into a large chamber lined with statues of gigantic, ancient Chinese soldiers. Standing a few feet in front of the statues are heavily armed HYDRA guards and dagger-wielding Templar soldiers. In the center of the room the symbol for HYDRA is carved deeply into the floor. The symbols for the Order of the Knights Templar and Illuminati are carved into the floor as well, forming a Venn Diagram with the HYDRA skull at the convergence point. At the head of the symbols stand three men wearing well-tailored suits. Diana and Steve recognize the man to the left as Henrik. The man in the middle smiles at them. “Welcome, Avengers, to the end of the world as you know it!” 

Where are the last pieces,” Wonder Woman demands. The man on the right, who is wearing a Templar medallion, holds up the Eye of Omniscience; Henrik holds up the other, triangular piece. The Avengers take a few steps away from each other, preparing an attack formation. The HYDRA leader ignores them and says, “My name is Addison Smythe. You already know my colleague, Henrik; this is my spiritual advisor, Mr. Pinault. You are about to witness the birth of the New World. Hand me the other two pieces, if you please.”

There is a roar, as Bruce transforms. Several things happen at once. Hawkeye and Iron Man open fire on the HYDRA soldiers, Sif, Black Widow and Captain America charge toward some more soldiers and guards. From behind her, Diana hears the clanging of weapons, shouts of pain, and the rattle of gunfire.

Thor and Hulk storm toward the three men, but are repelled backwards when they try to cross over the floor symbols. Wonder Woman looks up, throws her lasso onto the battle axe of a statue and swings herself overhead, perching herself above the three men. The men look vaguely amused. The din of battle echoes through the chamber. Smythe looks to Henrik and asks, loudly enough for anyone close by to hear, “How long?” Henrik takes out his watch fob and replies, “Twenty-one minutes.” 

Pinault appears oblivious. He is chanting something in a language Wonder Woman does not recognize. The sound of slowly moving stone reverberates through the chamber. The animated statue hurls her across the chamber so quickly she does not have time to react and fly. The next thing she senses is a sticky, slightly metallic taste in her mouth and her forehead throbs. She puts her head to her hand and there is blood on it when she looks at her palm.

She forces herself to stand, and runs toward where the Avengers, soldiers and statues are fighting. She is dizzy and the ground feels dangerously uneven. Natasha is being atypically careless and sloppy in technique, as if fighting from a place of rage rather than reason. Wonder Woman observes her roundhouse kick three men and they fall. Instead of moving onto the next target, Natasha continues to kick them as they lay motionless on the ground. She is not aware of the other four men about to attack from behind. Grabbing the blade of a broken statue’s battle axe, Wonder Woman flies up and hurls it at the attackers and yells, “Black Widow, look out!” Black Widow whirls around, ducks the stone blade, moves onto another melee without surveying the room first. 

“It’s Pinault!” Wonder Woman yells over to Thor. He’s altering the energy in the room! Make him stop chanting and the statues stop! She also suspects, briefly, that it is this same energy field that is causing her teammates to suffer at the hands of these troops and react to them with anger. Thor hurls his hammer toward the chanting Templar, but it bounces off of the rune perimeter harmlessly.

She flies up to face-level with a statue, lassos it around the neck, and yanks hard. It crashes to the floor with a satisfying boom and turns to dust. The next one, which bears down on Hawkeye, also crumbles to dust when it crashes to the ground. The battle rages on: she, Iron Man, Thor and The Hulk destroying the golems; Sif, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye fighting the soldiers. The smell of blood is everywhere, and it stains the walls by the time the last stone soldier falls and the last human fighter slumps to the ground. 

Black Widow is unconscious on the floor, as is Hawkeye. Blood gushes from somewhere on Sif’s thigh. Iron Man’s suit sizzles and spits out sparks. Captain America and Thor both struggle to stand. Wonder Woman’s stomach and head pound so loudly she can barely hear.

Henrik looks calmly at Smythe and smiles. “Five minutes.” In response, Smythe places a hand on Pinault’s shoulder, and Pinault blinks, as if he’d been in a trance. He holds up the Eye, and the two remaining pieces of the artifact go flying from Tony and Thor, straight into Pinault’s hands. He hands the base to Smythe. 

“I can help you, my friends,” Smythe says. “I will control all of time, all of history.” He looks at Bruce, who is barely conscious from blood loss. “Would you like a cure for your condition, Dr. Banner? “A chance at a normal life?” He then turns his attention to Thor. “Perhaps you could have saved your beloved brother from his own, dark mind, had you caught it sooner.” He walks over to where Wonder Woman is kneeling next to Captain America, examining the chest wound under his torn uniform. “And you, he says. A life without conflict? Children and a safe place to raise them?” Stepping back to address them all, he says, pledge your allegiance to HYDRA, just as the Illuminati and Knights Templar have done so, and you will hold places of privilege in the New World. 

He places the base of the artifact at the center of the Venn Diagram. Pinault places his half of the triangle to one side; Henrik does the same. The ground ripples beneath them—everywhere in the room except for within the rune. Wonder Woman watches with horror as her friends’ outlines blur. She knows she is beginning to break apart as well. She can’t see straight. Has the force field lowered? Smythe takes up the Eye of Omniscience, looking triumphant. Henrik nods at him. “It is time.”

As Smythe lowers the eye into its place between the triangles, Wonder Woman tears the tiara from her head and flings it at the artifact. It knocks the artifact just out of the center of the rune, and the eye rolls across the floor. She stops it with her foot, grabs it, and dives across the floor to grab the artifact. 

She is standing on Mount Olympus, next to the throne of Hera herself. There is a marble pedestal in front of them. On it are the Omnipotent Eye: the put together artifact, and a tiny model arena. The Mother Goddess and she peer into the arena, and Hera nods at her. One by one, Diana gently lifts up meticulously sculpted marble figures of her friends, just as she left them. One at a time, she holds them in the palm of her hand, and tells them she loves them. She places her finger on each of their wounds, and places them back down again. She kisses Steve’s likeness before she sets him down. Then she looks back to Hera. “Have you no desires of your own, sweet child,” Hera inquires. Diana doesn’t answer, but she looks back down at the marble figure of Steve. Hera smiles down at her. “Athena and Aphrodite are both correct,” she says. “Wisdom and love in equal measure; perhaps a bit less wisdom with that one, but acceptable.” 

“There is nothing I would change,” Diana says quietly, “that would not send dangerous ripples of energy into the universe. No mortal should ever have that power.” Hera nods at her once, and touches Diana’s brow. Diana feels the gash become numb; the muscles in her brow smooth and relax. “Pay heed you your own wounds, as well as those of others,” Hera tells her. Hera leans forward and picks up the figure of Steve again. With two fingers, she gingerly removes the yellow crystal from his belt, and then places him back down. She then unwinds the rosemary stem and leaves from Diana’s thorn bracelet. She stares at the bracelet for a moment. 

“Hippolyta truly dislikes your union in Patriarch’s world,” she states, sounding vaguely amused. She holds the crystal and herb in her fist. “Apatite for the future; rosemary for remembrance,” she says, and opens her fist over the Omnipotent Eye, and drops the crushed items over it. The eye glows bright green. Diana stares into the eye. When she looks away, she is in the passenger seat of her own jet, with Steve flying them home.


	41. Chapter 41

At the immediate debriefing, Diana hears that she disappeared when she landed on the artifact, There was light, and she was gone. The room immediately started to buckle, and then she reappeared, disoriented, speaking in Themiscrian, and the artifact was gone. At that point they all discovered that their injuries had completely healed.

That evening, she preoccupies herself with packing. They are both wide awake and exhausted. At midnight, Steve finally says, “Diana, it doesn’t all have to be done tonight. It’s been a rough few days. Relax.” He tries putting his hands on her shoulders to guide her to the bedroom and get some rest. She resists the gentle push, but turns around to hug him, burying her face in his chest.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmurs into his heart. He kisses the top of her head and asks “what for?”

“I was with Hera herself. She offered me a chance to change anything in the world that I wanted, just for me. I could have done so much good. I could have saved so many people. I told her no. I was so afraid that any change in anyone’s past would destroy everything. So after healing everyone’s wounds, I chose inaction. I was weak.”

Steve sits down on a pile of boxes and makes room for Diana to sit as well. “It sounds like she was giving you a test,” he says after a while. “I bet you passed.”

“There’s so much I could have done. I could have brought back your brother, all grown up, and you would have him, or your friend Bucky, and you would have family and companions to support you. They would be at our wedding. Didn’t you say that usually, many relatives attend one another’s weddings? We don’t have that.”

Steve looks shocked. “So, you’re offered the power to change any one thing in the world, past or present, just for you, and the first thing you thought of was bringing my family back to me?”

Diana nods. “I want you happy, and not alone.” 

Steve is mystified. How is it that a princess, and a goddess at that, someone who is used to receiving offerings and granting petitions, is this selfless? In her own way, she is the most demanding person he has ever known: she insists on seeing the best in him, and he doesn’t have to live up to the image, he has to truly see himself as it. He gets up and leads her to the sofa to sit down. He kneels down in front of her. “Diana, I have the one person I want in my life. Our wedding will be perfect. And we all understand not doing anything back there…that’s probably the response Hera wanted. But how do you not think of your own happiness?”

“I am already happy. And I am sometimes selfish about my happiness,” she states, simply and matter-of-factly. 

“You’re not selfish, and it’s really difficult to buy you gifts. You’re aware of this problem, right?

She shrugs as an answer. Then, she reaches past Steve and pulls a yellow petal off of one of the roses Steve had just brought home the day before. She slides it over Steve’s forehead, the bridge of his nose, his lips, his throat. She removes his t-shirt and then continues the rose petal’s descent past his navel. She glides it over the lines of his abdomen up to his chest, over and around each nipple. “Would you like me to take from you what I really want?”

He takes her head in his hands and kisses her, but she pushes him away. She outlines the edge of his mouth with her finger. When she parts his mouth open and he gently sucks her finger, she does it again. Diana never tires of touching him. She tracks his face with her finger: cheekbones, left and right, temples, left and right, the bridge of his nose, eye sockets and eyelids. 

She leans her face closer to his, press brows together; she looks closer and closer at him. His eyes get larger and larger until they merge into one eye, as if they were playing Cyclops. They both smile, and Diana closes her eyes and bites the tip of his nose, his upper lip, lower lip, and kisses him deeply. Their breath begins to blend together into one living thing, mouths struggle. She pushes his open even wider. His breath is warm and it tastes like coffee. She is sure that somehow, somewhere inside this man, is a room. The room contains his truest self, his life force, his perpetual light. She wants to go deeply into him, past his skin, slip through him, and live in that place. 

He undoes his jeans, and wriggles out of pants and boxers. He then starts to fumble with the hem of her shirt, but she pushes his hands away and tears it off, as if it were made of tissue paper. She sinks her hands into his hair kisses him again. She thinks they might smother one another. Without ending the kiss, he helps her slide out of her jeans and underwear. 

The palm of her left hand presses into his spine. She knows the thorns on her bracelet, the one he placed on her wrist and said “thou shalt know the heart of another” is scraping against his skin. She knows it likely hurts him. She can’t have what she truly wants because it would destroy them both. She pushes herself closer to him and digs her fingers into his flesh. She is both Scylla and Charybdis; she is hungry and thirsty and greedy. She uses her teeth as they kiss, biting his lips and tongue. What she wants is him: not just him inside of her for a beautiful little while, but to gain entrance to him. Somehow, they can become a single entity. She is certain. 

Steve breaks off the kiss and gasps for air. “Diana!” But she is a thing possessed. Or, perhaps her other, base self is finally taking her place in Diana’s consciousness: the Amazonian Warrior Princess, the fierce fighter whose sole joy is victory. She stands up and pushes him to the floor with more force than he is used to. She pins his forearms to the floor and moves her head down to his penis. She explores it with her tongue. She circles the tip over and over with her lips until she covers it completely. She works her way down, investigating his entire sex with her mouth. He has to let her, this time. He has absolutely no choice. His breath quickens. He grabs fistfuls of her hair.

Diana stops abruptly, and squats over him, lowers onto him and he breathlessly calls her name again. She feels as if she is rippling, rippling, the way fire dances on the wick of a candle: soft, gentle flame steadily dancing, and then points of brilliant light and heat. The circular rhythm begins, building in tempo and volume until it overtakes her entire consciousness. She is pure movement, a vortex of feeling that expands and hollows her out until she is only energy and sensation and she finally allows Steve his own release when she has no sense of her own physical boundaries and they are one perfect circle of sensation. 

She lays over him, legs, feet, fingers and hands entwined. Her ear is to his chest. She feels his heartbeat reverberate through his body all the way down to his toes. They lay there saying nothing for several minutes. Diana finally breaks the silence. “I’m sorry.”

Steve props himself up on his forearms and looks down at her. He cups her face with one hand and kisses her on the mouth very gently. “Don’t be sorry. That was…um…wow. I don’t really know what that was. It wasn’t anything to be sorry about, that’s for sure.” He glances around the room. An end table is upended and cracked, and his coffee mug has rolled across the room and chipped. “I didn’t like that mug or table anyway,” he says, grinning. “Are you alright? Is there something we need to talk about?” 

She shakes her head no. He stands up and extends a hand to help Diana stand. “If anything in the world’s history changed, I might not be with you. That’s why I am horribly selfish,” she says. “I could have prevented entire wars, genocides, natural disasters. But I couldn’t do it. I put my own desires first, and that desire is you. I think Hera knew the reason for my choice. I don’t know whether she approved. What’s worse is I care more about whether you approve than whether she does.”

Steve holds her gaze for a few moments. He thinks about all the times they make life and death decisions for other people. He knows how deeply Diana feels when she cannot save everyone. He wonders about the decision he nearly had to make, the situation reversed. “I froze up,” he thinks. “She acted.” “Sounds like you’re pretty serious about this relationship,” he eventually replies. Diana throws her head back and laughs. In bed, after she’s turned out the light, Steve pulls her close and says, “I love you, and I’m grateful.” Because he thinks she needs to hear it, he adds, “And I forgive you. You did nothing wrong, but I still forgive you.”


	42. Chapter 42

“What in your gods’ names has gotten into you?” Natasha is flat on her back in a sparring room, panting.

She’s not entirely sure “what’s gotten into her,” so she can’t answer the question. When she doesn’t answer for several seconds, Natasha begins to explain, “It’s a figure of speech. It means…”

“I know that one,” Diana interrupts. “I just can’t answer your question.” She is pensive for a few moments. “Natasha,” she begins, “you have had relationships before. You know more about men than I do.”

“Uh-oh, what happened?” Natasha rolls onto her side and props herself up on her arm. She pats the floor for Diana to join her. “Step into my office.”

“He claims he is not angry with me, but I don’t believe him.”

Natasha tells her to “start from the beginning,” It is February 15, so Diana begins with the days leading up to Valentine’s Day. 

“Steve wanted to do something special, since last year was…problematic.”

Natasha nods. “Oh, I remember that. He was being an asshole.” 

Diana shrugs and continues. “I told him the holiday as it is celebrated now makes little sense to me. I said that the holiday technically started with the Pre-Romans’ celebration of Lupercalia, to avert evil spirits and purify the city, thus raising the health and fertility of the population. I remember that celebration. I reminded him that our current home is free of evil spirits, to my knowledge, as is the apartment whose lease we just signed, and we work daily to rid the entire world of evil. We’re both extremely healthy, and haven’t really bridged the topic of reproduction. I also explained that popular depictions of Eros were absolutely inaccurate.

“Oh, Diana. You didn’t really tell him that, did you?”

“Why would I fabricate this story?” She continues, “Anyway, we discussed it for some time. Steve got frustrated, and said he just wanted to do something special to mark the holiday. I said that sounded lovely, but I still didn’t understand why it had to be on a specific day. I don’t have a problem with that day, but I express my love to him every day. I know every day that he loves me.”

She pauses. Natasha tells her, “I’m sure he was hoping for a little more enthusiasm on your part, but there’s got to be more to this.”

Diana sighs. “Nothing bad really happened after that. I did my best to understand and participate in the current variation of the celebration. We had a very nice dinner out, we avoided paparazzi for the most part. We went dancing—Steve found a place that played music from his generation. Our lovemaking was beautiful…”

“And?”

“In the spirit of the original tradition, I asked if he wanted a child at some point.”

Natasha cringes. “I guess it’s kind of an inevitable question. Probably not fantastic timing if he was going for that ‘perfect evening’ kind of vibe though. What did he say?”

“He was surprised—as if it never occurred to him before. But he’s a very traditional man in many ways, and I just assumed that since marriage often leads to having children, he’d thought about the subject. But he got very quiet and withdrawn. I knew he was upset because we were only intimate once that night. I don’t understand why the subject is so distressing to him. We weren’t intimate this morning, either.”

Natasha thinks for a few moments. “Okay, I have questions and a comment. The comment is that you probably just surprised him, and he might not have come to any decision about whether he wants to start a family. The first two questions are, do YOU want to have a family with him, and did you tell him?”

“He asked me the same thing,” Diana replies. “I answered that I am neither averse nor committed to it. If I conceive I would welcome that occurrence; I’m not entirely sure I can, though. I was formed out of clay. Reproduction on Themyscira, by its nature, cannot happen. I wasn’t created with the intention of finding a partner in and adding to the population of Man’s World. The gods might not have given me the ability to carry a child.”

“Hmmm…you probably just gave him a lot more to think about than he was ready for. I doubt he’s mad at you. I’d just give him a little time to process the question and the information. Anyway, my other question, and I’m very curious for no reason at all about this…”

“Yes, ask me anything.”

“Are you implying that you guys have sex multiple times every night?”

Diana doesn’t miss a beat, and answers with her usual candor. “Yes. Most nights we have intercourse two or three times; sometimes more if we’re feeling especially energetic. Usually only once in the mornings, though.” 

Natasha grins. “Our conversation about THAT is far from over. But trust me, my friend. He’s not gonna stay distant for too long.” 

That evening, they sit on opposite ends of the sofa, reading. Diana’s feet are tucked under Steve’s extended legs; Steve occasionally moves his foot up and down her leg. “That tickles,” Diana smiles. “Stop that!” 

“Unh-uh. That’s why I’m doing it!” She puts down her book and starts to bend her knees and move her legs away from him, but she’s too slow. He grabs her calves and pulls her closer until she’s on his lap, facing him. “Gotchya.”

“So you aren’t angry at me anymore? I didn’t mean to upset you last night.”

“I was never angry, sweetheart. I’m sorry if I made you think I was. I just don’t have an answer for you. The best I’ve got is ‘not anytime soon,’ probably. I mean, unless you really want to, or if it just, y’know, happens then we’ll figure things out but I don’t know. I don’t know what the serum they gave me would do to a baby. I don’t even know if it’s possible for me, either. I don’t know how we’d be able to do our jobs and take care of a kid. I don’t know how to protect my own kid and the world at the same time. You just caught me off-guard and gave me a lot to think about.” 

Diana sighs and looks relieved. “Then we feel the same way,” she tells him. “Natasha was right. I’m glad you aren’t keeping your distance from me anymore.”

Steve groans. He doesn’t bother asking exactly what they talked about; he’s learned that he’s usually better off not knowing.

“Are we better now?” Diana asks.

“There was never a problem,” he replies. He pulls her a little closer. “Now, that’s not to say we couldn’t just keep trying until one of us drops, you know, as an experiment…”


	43. Chapter 43

The ocean is choppy, making the ship unstable. “You’re sure this is it,” asks the captain.

Black Widow nods affirmatively. “That’s our best intel right now. 

Natasha, Wonder Woman and Captain America are in their diving gear. The small SHIELD ship drops anchor. They each mount their underwater propulsion vehicles and dive downward.

Their information proves correct. They dive deeper and deeper until they find the lost, ancient Temple of Poseidon. Wonder Woman lifts herself up to the temple floor and removes her breathing apparatus. “It’s fine,” she says. She helps Black Widow up while Captain America ties down the diving gear. “Oh my god,” Natasha says, slightly awestruck. “Tell me about this place again?”

Wonder Woman explains, “This is the Lost Temple of Poseidon, built by King Pelops, who was one of Poseidon’s lovers for a time.” Captain America joins them. “This should be reported to the Greek government. It’s an important find.” 

Let’s get what we came for first,” Natasha replies. They split up, looking for the alien artifact they’d been sent to retrieve. There are statues of minor gods and horses throughout, along with reliefs of various scenes on the walls and columns. On a pedestal stands a twenty-foot high statue of Poseidon with his trident. Wonder Woman translates a written relief near the base of the statue and calls out, “It’s here!” There is something glowing in Poseidon’s hand. 

Wonder Woman throws her lasso onto one of Poseidon’s fingers and begins to climb. When she gets to the palm of his hand, she re-fastens her lasso, then she takes the small sack attached to her belt and opens it. The artifact is a black cube about the size of a man’s fist. SHIELD is unsure of what it does; they want it before HYDRA or any other group gets hold of it though. She lays the open sack over the artifact, scoops it up, and ties it back to her belt. Poseidon’s hand begins to form a fist around her. 

She dives between his thumb and index finger before it completely closes around her, and lands on her feet. Poseidon is angry, as are the minor gods surrounding him. The marble statues have become pliant, animated, and they mount their animated horses to attack the thieves. Captain America rushes one of the minor gods head-on, and they repel each other. Columns begin to crumble around them. They cause the entire temple to shake, making the ceiling crack. Water rushes in as the animated statues continue to attack. 

Wonder Woman grabs a shard of marble and hurls it toward Poseidon’s brow as he attacks her with his trident. She misses, and Poseidon pins her down with his trident. It slashes her arm and she yells out in pain. The statue bends down to scoop her back up into his hand as Captain America comes running towards her. He jumps into Poseidon’s palm and it starts to close around both of them. Between his shield and what strength Wonder Woman has in her uninjured arm, they manage to pry themselves loose and leap to the ground as the entire ceiling breaks open and the ocean above crashes down on everything, causing the horse and minor god statues to break.

Poseidon crashes down in a heap of marble. The floor splits open and carries the diving gear away. All three of them hold their breaths and use the force of the waves to help them swim upwards. Halfway up, a shark swims up, attracted by Wonder Woman’s wound. Black Widow and Captain America freeze for a moment and prepare to defend themselves, despite the fatigue they are feeling from holding their breaths. The shark moves right up to Wonder Woman then turns around and swims away. Wonder Woman motions for them to continue upward.

Back on board and heading home, Natasha asks Diana about the shark incident. Diana puts her hand to the wound, which is already a fading scar. “Artemis gave me the gift of affinity with all earthly creatures,” Diana explains. “Sharks count. I knew it wasn’t going to hurt me.” She turns to Steve. “Are you alright?” He nods. “Just tired,” he replies. “Tired and ready to go home. I had no idea I could hold my breath for that long.”

Neither Diana nor Natasha answer. They are on the bench opposite him, leaning in on each other, asleep. Steve grabs his phone to take a picture. “Peas in a pod,” he says quietly, and then nods off to sleep.


	44. Chapter 44

Twenty-four hours later, after returning to headquarters, delivering the artifact to a very pleased Assistant Director Maria Hill, and getting debriefed, Diana and Steve are finally ready to go home. Steve unlocks the door and before Diana can protest, scoops her up in his arms before he walks through the door of their new apartment, which consists of the top floor of a renovated brownstone. When he puts her down, she looks confused. “It’s an old tradition. The groom carries the bride over the threshold of their new home. I know we’re not married yet, but I thought this was enough of an occasion.”

Diana sighs. “It is a very patriarchal concept,” she replies. “I am not an item someone’s given you.”

“Give me my moment, please, Diana.”

“Very well.” She smiles at him. “It’s a patriarchal gesture, but I will allow that it’s very sweet.” 

She follows him over to the large window in the living room, where there is a view of the Capitol’s skyline. “Are those happy tears, or sad ones, my love?” She asks him.

He lays his arm across her shoulders. “Happy. I’ve seen a lot of injustice, absolute horrors. I’ve seen more carnage than anyone ever ought to see. I’ve lost so many loved ones, and yesterday, for the second time in my life, I’ve been attacked by statues. Y’know, I’ve been a fish out of water all my life. But despite everything I’m happy. It’s hard for me to even express it. How did I end up here with you?”

Diana looks vaguely confused. “Are you referring to what happened off the coast of Greece? I don’t understand the reference.”

“Oh, right.” Steve explains, smiling. “A fish doesn’t belong on land. It can’t survive there very long, and it suffers the whole time,” 

She wraps her arm around his waist and says, “I too, have been like a suffocating fish, then…and I feel the same way. When I am with you, I am home.”

They spend the next few days exploring and enjoying domesticity: unpacking and deciding where to put things, finding a new running route, learning the neighborhood. It’s a little bit closer to SHIELD headquarters than their old building. Inevitably, neighbors recognize Captain America. It’s equally inevitable that they recognize the woman with whom he’s been pictured in tabloids, celebrity websites, and on entertainment shows. Diana takes it in stride, mostly. She is used to being stopped and wished well everywhere she goes in Themyscira. She is *not* used to this type of semi-celebrity status, though. Some neighbors are simply insolent. She handles impertinent questions the same way she handles the people who ogle her at the SHIELD library: with firm politeness. The neighbors rarely get answers to their questions, but they leave feeling satisfied with her answers. It doesn’t bother her if people stop her to have a picture taken. Steve has a harder time with curious neighbors. He turns red and walks off, ignoring them most of the time. He constantly marvels at her patience with their new, inquisitive neighbors. “They mean no harm,” she tells him. “They will allow us our privacy when they get used to our presence.”

Diana’s prediction is correct, and within a few weeks, most of their new acquaintances actually warn them if paparazzi are in sight, helping protect the privacy of their new neighbors. Steve is sure it is because everyone loves Diana. It’s her sweet, compassionate demeanor. They settle into a comfortable routine. Steve is genuinely happy. When they on separate missions, he looks forward to coming home, knowing that it actually feels like “home.” Had he had his way, he and Diana would have been married prior to moving in together, but he is adjusting to the modern world’s new norm of moving in together first, especially since the place they’d wanted became available. 

It is June, and the world is quiet. He watches her come out of the bathroom in a towel, fresh from her post-shower run. He is smiling. “What are you staring at,” she says, smiling back. She sits on the edge of her side of the bed, and he grabs her waist, laying her down. She rolls over to face him. “I like this,” he says.

“Like what?”

“Just this. All of this: being here at home with my soon-to-be wife. You have to understand, I never thought this was part of my future. Even before everything happened in the forties, I figured it was a longshot for me to fall in love and make a life with someone. I mean, I know it sounds superficial, but this is sort of miraculous to me.”

She inches closer so she can curl up next to him. “I never thought I’d turn my back on home. I never thought anything in Man’s World could be worth my entire way of life and my immortality.” 

Steve is quiet for a few moments, savoring the feeling of skin touching skin. “What if I’d been someone else, and another guy ended up washed up on the shores of Themyscira,” he wonders aloud.

Without hesitating, Diana replies, “You are the first man I ever met. But I have met other men. During the War there were many potential suitors for both Diana and Wonder Woman, but they weren’t you. When I came back all those years later, I met you again, and no other men were like you. Why are you suddenly insecure?”

“I’m not insecure, just reflecting. This girl I was stuck on liked me back and now I’m gonna marry her. I occasionally wait for the other shoe to drop. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it.”

Diana moves her feet over his. “It’s an expression,” Steve tells her. “It means it’s inevitable that something’s gonna happen.” 

“Oh.” She rolls on top of him and kisses him, and wraps her legs around his. “I bet I know what’s inevitably going to happen,” she says.


	45. Chapter 45

It is late July. The handholds are slippery from last night’s rain, and Steve is trying to stay ahead. “No cheating,” he’d warned Diana. “No flying unless one of us falls.” She smiled that sweet, innocent smile and replied, “Of course!” She’s gaining on him, though, and the trail on up to and through the stretch of the Appalachians they’re climbing is not an especially easy one when it’s this wet. 

“You’re not getting tired already?” Diana teases, as she shortens his lead.

“Not on your life,” he calls back. Winner gets to name their prize. He speeds up his ascent. Just as he’s about to hoist himself to the top, triumphant, he sees a smaller feminine hand reach up next to him. He grins and says “Oh no you don’t!”, and scrambles to the top of the rock. She joins him a couple of seconds later. “It’s okay,” she tells him. “I had a pretty good view from behind you.” The air is warm and damp, and there is a slight breeze up here. They look out over the wildlife refuge and savor the moment. 

Overhead, they hear a helicopter approaching. “Did someone seriously hire a helicopter to get tabloid pictures to sell?” Steve says with irritation. 

“I say we make it worth the expense and effort,” Diana says. She pushes him against a rock, presses her whole body to him, and kisses him deeply. Steve kisses her back and puts his arms around her, but really, he’s torn between surrender and utter mortification. When Diana lets him go, he knows he is bright red. Diana waves at the man hanging out of the helicopter with a camera. Diana calls out, “Show’s over, you can leave now!” The man waves back, hoists himself into the helicopter and it flies away.

That Monday, everywhere he goes in SHIELD headquarters, Steve keeps his head down so no one will see how much he is blushing. Everywhere, he is greeted with wolf-whistles. There are so many copies around the office that he doesn’t even bother tearing down the cut-out newspaper pictures of him and Diana making out on top of the rock. By the time he runs into Tony, he’s pretty much heard all the comments and jokes. Tony’s addition doesn’t even faze him. 

“I like the picture,” she says. She has printed a copy from online and it is in a frame, next to the one of her and Natasha propping each other up as they sleep. He has to admit the picture itself is kind of cute, “but that’s not the point,” he adds. 

“Think of it this way: can you imagine how little privacy we’d have if the public knew who I was?” He admits that things would be much more difficult if Wonder Woman’s identity was revealed. “Maybe we should’ve looked for property in the middle of nowhere, where it’s really hard for anyone to access. 

“You mean like Themyscira? You could see my mother every day for the rest of your life!” Diana jokes. Steve laughs. “Okay you win. Maybe occasional public curiosity isn’t that bad.”


	46. Chapter 46

Diana has invited Natasha, Lydia, Pepper, and Jane, for drinks at her apartment while Steve is on an assignment. To her surprise, Sif manages to join them as well. Pepper is telling Diana, “Okay. We’ve got the dress, venue, and flowers; food is almost taken care of, and now we need to find you something that makes the alcohol worth it.” Diana laughs. I don’t think such a thing exists in your world.” Sif is pensive for a moment or two, and then says “I might have something.” She removes a small flask from her belt, unscrews it, and hands it to Diana. Diana sniffs it and wrinkles her nose. “This very unlikely to affect me.” She takes a big swallow, makes a face, and then hands the flask back to Sif. 

She feels fine. Maybe. The room is tilting to the right a little bit. She stands up, sways, and grabs the chair to steady herself. Then she changes her mind and sits again. “We have a winner!” Natasha exclaims. “Let the bachelorette party plans commence! Sif, you’re in charge of the booze.”

Diana is quietly trying to steady her vision. She feels almost as if she’s back on assignment, walking on a boat over choppy waves, but the waves are in her head. Her hands grip the table. 

“Speaking of parties,” Diana says to Pepper, “Steve is nervous about whatever Tony is planning. Do you have any influence with him? He’d like it to be a quiet affair.” It feels as if her mouth is filled with sand. Pepper assures her that she’ll speak with him, but adds that it isn’t likely to change much, whatever he’s got planned. 

Diana turns her attention to Sif. “Sif, you grew up with Thor. You know he is honorable and will be a voice of reason, yes?” Diana’s words are just slightly slurred. She admonishes herself for her hubris. She shouldn’t have had such a large swallow of whatever Sif had given her. Sif nearly spits out her drink. “Thor’s drunken revelries are notorious!” 

She looks around the table. Her sight is slightly off focus. She sighs and says, “Poor Steve.” She and the entire table laugh hysterically.


	47. Chapter 47

“I’m really not comfortable with this,” Steve begins. “Couldn’t we have done this at your place instead of a hotel penthouse in Manhattan?” Tony gives him a look. “No,” he explains for the third time, “the ladies don’t need to see what we’re doing. And besides, that’s where they’re having their own little party. Relax! It’ll just be a few buddies drinking, smoking cigars, shooting the shit. All high class, no sig-o’s to intrude.” Steve does relax a little, and reminds Tony that he hasn’t been able to get drunk since around 1941. That’s when Thor walks in carrying a large case of Asgardian ale. Clint and Phil are close behind; Clint carries another case of the alien brew. “We’ve got a wager on you,” Phil tells Steve. “$100 says we’ll be able to get you drunk before midnight. Clint says you’re too much of a Boy Scout.” 

“Might as well just pay up now,” Steve replies to Phil. Nick Fury walks in and proclaims, “I’m in. Put me down for plastered. I wanna see this.” Tony laughs and collects the money. Bruce hands him his wager against Steve’s inebriation.

Steve leans against the bar, opens one of the bottles Thor has set out, and says, “All bets are closed, bottoms-up!” He takes a swig, finishing off about half the bottle. Then he finishes it. “Nope, nothin’.” Thor takes another bottle and downs it in four swallows. “You haven’t had enough!” he assures Steve. He tosses his own bottle against a wall and grabs another.

By around 10:00, Steve is actually enjoying himself. This isn’t so bad. Tony’s chosen music that he actually likes and the company is excellent. It’s been too long since he’s hung out with brothers in arms, and all his friends have been telling stories of their past misadventures and misdeeds. It reminds him of sitting around camp with his men, except more comfortable. Additionally, although he’s reaffirmed his dislike for cigars, he’s on his third bottle of ale, and is actually feeling a vaguely familiar warmth and ease. He leans in to Nick. The movement feels sudden and makes him dizzy. He tells him, “I think you and Phil might be making money off of me tonight.” Nick grabs Steve’s hand and holds it up. “Victory!” he shouts. 

“Excellent!” Tony shouts back, and makes his way over. He joins Steve on the couch, puts an arm around him and says, “I’m willing to bet you don’t have past misdeeds to spill, so this is it. What’s she like?”

Steve stiffens a little. He isn’t THAT drunk. “I don’t think so. Nice try.” Clint and Thor amble over. Thor, who is clearly a couple of sheets to the wind, offers a detail about Jane. Steve swallows the last of his third bottle and leans back on the couch. “Mostly my name, and usually some gods and goddesses. Especially if it happens while she’s on top,” he says, staring at the ceiling. He can’t believe he just said that. He can feel his neck and face go hot. “That’s all you get,” he says. “And I’m switching to plain tap water from here on out.” Then he starts laughing, and someone hands him another bottle. “It’s your party and you’re not going anywhere tonight.” Phil’s voice. “One more, since I can’t get that blasted without causing major damage,” Bruce cajoles. Steve opens the bottle and gestures to him. “Only because it’s for you,” he says. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it occurs to him that his Brooklyn accent has intensified.

The questions keep coming, accompanied by proffered details about the mens’ other partners, past and present. Steve finishes his fifth ale. “You’ve seen those marble statues of Aphrodite in the museums? Not even close,” he says, grinning. “She’s trimmer, with more of an hourglass shape and more defined muscles, but they definitely got the flawless skin and breasts right.”

Around midnight, there is a knock on the door. “They’re here!” Tony announces gleefully, loping over to the door. Three heavily made up young women in impossibly high heels and trench coats stride in. One of them, a blonde, drapes her arm over Tony’s shoulders and kisses his cheek. “Which one’s the groom?” she asks.

Steve’s eyes go wide, and his stomach lurches. He remembers the downside of being this drunk. “Are you out of your goddamned mind?!” Tony leers at the other two women. “I said no low-class strippers. These ladies are as top-shelf as you can get!” Clint grabs a straight-back chair from behind the bar and sets it in the middle of the room. “There’s your man!” he exclaims, pointing at Steve.

Bruce, Phil, and Tony start to pull Steve over to the chair, but he resists. “Little help, Thor!” Phil calls, and Thor obliges. They plop Steve into the chair and a red-haired woman takes off her trench coat. She’s wearing a black leather bra and a matching thong and long black stockings held up by a matching garter. “Diana can and will kill all of us, you know this,” Steve slurs, but the rest of his sentence is muffled because the stripper has just planted a big, wet kiss on him. Steve turns his head away and grimaces. He doesn’t dare touch her to push her away, just in case she takes touching as encouragement. The men in the room roar. “Please stop,” Steve begs, quietly, hoping the woman will take pity on him. Instead, she straddles his lap and begins to grind, arching her back to mimic enjoyment. If he could stand up he would, but after his fifth bottle of ale, his legs are wobbly and he’s afraid he might knock the chair over and hurt her. She leans in and sticks her breasts in his face. “The groom gets special privileges,” she coos. You can touch them if you like.” Steve tries to move his head away, but she only smooshes herself closer to him. “No thanks,” he says into her cleavage. The woman finishes her routine, kisses Steve again, and lets him off the chair. “Who’s next, she asks coquettishly. 

Steve makes a circuitous retreat to the bathroom and splashes water on his face. He feels a little sick. He wonders if the men would miss him if he just stayed in here the rest of the night. After a few minutes of collecting himself, he returns. With the exception of Bruce, who is not that wasted by necessity, the men make the most of their time with the women. Bruce simply looks on, amused. “Diana’s gonna kill me,” Steve says. He knows it isn’t true, but it’s better than admitting he would love to close the door to one of the bedrooms, lock the door and hide for the rest of the night. His head is already starting to pound. “She’s more likely to murder Tony, if any of this night gets back to her. What happens here, stays here,” Bruce replies with a chuckle. “We chose this place for its tight-lipped security, among other things.”

Steve quickly discovers that every time he tries to sit down and steady himself, someone takes it as an invitation to a lap dance,” so he spends most of his time standing unsteadily, until around 2:00 when the strippers leave. Then he plops down on a couch and the world goes black.

Diana, meanwhile, is still nursing her first and only glass of Asgardian wine by around midnight. She learned her lesson two months ago. Pepper is hosting the bachelorette night at Stark Mansion. They are all varying degrees of tipsy. Lydia sits between Sif and Diana, an arm around each. She leans on Diana’s shoulder and looks down her blouse, then looks over at Sif. “So, you guys’ superpowers include perky boobs and perfect hair at all times. That is so cool. I wanna be you guys when I grow up.” Diana laughs. Sif frowns and asks for Lydia’s age.

Maria walks up and hugs Diana from behind. Her breath smells like champagne. “Okay, every woman from 1942 onward has been dying to know, Wonder Woman. “What is America’s Shield like in the sack?” Diana giggles and takes another sip of wine. “He is extremely gentle and passionate,” she says. Overhearing the conversation, Jane and Natasha come in from the kitchen to join the group. Natasha pipes in, “Apparently the man’s got some stamina, too. Diana tells me they do it like, four times or more a day!”

“No f-ing way!” Jane exclaims. “Even Thor isn’t that energetic. Then again, this mere human probably wears out a little faster than you do.” 

“It’s usually more like three,” Diana protests, but she’s smiling. “I must admit that our post-run shower is my favorite part of the morning.”

“Let’s spill,” Pepper pipes in. ”Tony keeps trying to lure me into his workshop to find things to use as accessories.”

“When Clint and I had our fling, he liked it when I pulled his hair. Hard,” Natasha laughs.

“He always makes sure I climax before he does,” Diana says dreamily. “He’s very guarded when I compliment his physique, because of how it came about, but I never get tired of looking at him. He has a beautiful body.”

The conversation goes on. By 3:00, everyone is falling asleep on sofas or Pepper’s bed, full of each other’s secrets. Lying between Pepper and Jane on the bed, Diana looks up at the skylight. The room is soft around the edges, and rocking a little bit. She has her sisterhood again. She gazes into the blurry stars and thanks the goddesses one by one before allowing the room to rock her to sleep.


	48. Chapter 48

“I told them you were gentle and passionate, and that you were innovative with your tongue,” Diana repeats, matter-of-factly. “I thought I was being complimentary. Bear in mind I’d also had more than half a glass of Sif’s wine by then. I haven’t forgotten the disclosure rules.” She takes another forkful of her salad and waits for Steve to respond. He looks somewhat pale. 

“All day long,” he begins, the guys have been patting me on the back congratulating me, and both Natasha and Assistant Director Hill went out of their way to tell me how lucky you are.”

“I am lucky,” Diana interrupts, smiling gently.

“I’m glad you think so, but I had no idea what anyone was talking about until now.” He sighs heavily and shakes his head. “Alright, you get a pass for being buzzed. I guess I can’t really be too mad. I might’ve mentioned a few things too, after enough booze was in me.”

“All good things?” Diana takes another mouthful. She doesn’t seem to think this is a big deal. 

“There aren’t any bad things to tell,” he admits. “But I might’ve done a quick sketch of what you look like naked.”

Diana shrugs. “Good. I would much rather they have an accurate image, rather than the renditions I find on the Internet.” She stands up to clear the table. “Unless,” she adds, you believe my body is something I ought to be embarrassed about.” She disappears into the kitchen. A few moments later, Steve walks into the kitchen to help, feeling contrite and slightly panicked. He feels even worse when he discovers Diana with her face buried in her hands, shaking. “Oh god, Diana, I didn’t mean that at all…it’s just, it’s private, y’know? I shouldn’t have done that.” He puts his hands to hers, and gently pulls them away from her face. She’s been laughing. He rolls his eyes and hoists her onto the counter. “You’re impossible.”

“There are things I’ve said and done in my life that I’m not proud of, which I might find embarrassing, and there are things I would not wish to share with anyone other than you. My body is most certainly among the latter. I wouldn’t have shared information that was private had I been firmly in control of my faculties. Then again, I daresay that’s the case for all of us that night.” 

He considers this for a few moments. “That’s fair,” he concedes. Steve looks down at his hands. “There’s uh…something else,” he begins, feeling his face get warm. Diana waits. “There were, uh, Tony invited a couple of strippers, and uh…they kept climbing into my lap. I ended up standing for about an hour and a half to avoid them. They were…um…persistent.” 

Diana regards him seriously for a few seconds, and then laughs. “I told Tony it would be ill-advised! I know Pepper was furious with yesterday.” 

He raises his eyebrows and steps closer, placing one hand on the outside of each of Diana’s thighs. “Oh really, you warned Tony off the girls,” he smirks. “Were you jealous?” 

She puts one hand on each shoulder and replies evenly, “No, I completely trust you. I knew you’d hate it. That’s why I told him not to bother.” She pulls him in closer and kisses the tip of his nose. “Although, she allows, “I’m not sure how I’d have felt if you did enjoy that part of your night.” Steve grins. “Six weeks!” 

“Are you disappointed your parents’ church isn’t there anymore?” She looks concerned. He shakes his head and tells her “Nah. It would’ve been good, but so’s the place we found, and I like the Army chaplain a lot. And I am so appreciative that you’re willing to let a clergyman do the ceremony.” 

“It’s more than a fair tradeoff. I’ve been sticking you with my mother’s bracelet for several months. And this makes you happy.”

“YOU make me happy,” he tells her, and the weight of this simple statement’s truth fills him. She keeps staring into his eyes as she moves her hands underneath his shirt and up his ribcage. He’s almost overwhelmed with a feeling of fragility, which comes out of nowhere. He slides his hands under her shirt and traces his fingertips along the bottoms of her breasts without breaking eye contact. Her bones feel light and fragile for someone this powerful. He thinks, “What if she really was that delicate? What if I never felt her skin against mine ever again?” He has no idea where that thought came from, but it makes him want to cry, even as his fingers move up to her nipples and she arches into him. They pull each other’s’ shirts off, and she wraps her legs around his hips, pulling him closer between her thighs. He opens her mouth with his, and she lets him move his tongue deep into her mouth, to the back of her teeth, the insides of her cheeks. She always tastes like something spicy and sweet, like cinnamon, but not quite. She moves her tongue inside of his mouth, now. Maybe they’ll simply swallow each other, he thinks. He imagines someone finding their remains in a few days, having left only bones and teeth of each other. He is straining against his jeans but he can’t stop kissing her. Part of him thinks maybe he only breathes because he is kissing her. 

She slides a hand down and plays with the button and zipper on his jeans. He kicks them off the rest of the way, and then steps out of them. Her skirt is bunched up around her waist, and she lifts herself an inch off the counter so he can straighten and unzip it, and slide it off of her. He moves his thumb and index finger inside of her panties and his mouth to her right nipple. She buries her head between his neck and shoulder. He moves both hands underneath her and carries her into the bedroom, lays her on the bed, and looks down at her.

She props herself onto her forearms after a few seconds. “Are you okay, my love?” He realizes he has been tearing up. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He remembers the first time he saw her, and then the first time he saw her undressed, and both times had asked if she was even real. He was so defensive. She starts to get up, and he meets her in the middle of the bed, and it occurs to him that he doesn’t have any defenses left, and can’t remember why they were there in the first place. He kisses her hard, and crushes her body to his as he guides her down beneath him, and then he can’t tell any more who is inside of whom. A sense of possessiveness overtakes him. For a few maddening moments, nothing is going to bring him close enough to her, and his mouth is on her breasts, her collar bones, her throat, and her mouth once again and her breathing is his and his breathing is hers, and when she cries out his name he is afraid he really might have hurt her, and the tears well up again.

She lies beneath him, supporting his weight, lightly running her fingers up and down his spine, making circles on the small of his back, careful to avoid scratching him with her bracelet. He can feel hot tears running down his face, dropping into her hair and onto the pillow. “It’s okay, Steve” she whispers. “It’s okay.” As if she can read his mind, she whispers, “I’m here, and we’re always going to be together.”


	49. Chapter 49

“That is IT! We are FINISHED!” Steve had no idea Diana could ever be this angry, but then again, she’s a goddess. In the books he’s read, they’re kind of known for their tempers. He leans against the wall by the door and tells Bruce, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.” Tony passes a bag of microwaved popcorn over to Bruce. “Here for the show?” Clint reaches into the bag and grabs a handful, spilling a couple of kernels on the floor. He ignores Steve’s “you’d best do something about that” look. “You’re lucky,” he tells Steve. “I’ve been on the receiving end of ‘wife and mother-in-law united’ before. Not fun.” 

They hear a loud slap from inside the Avengers lounge room. “Raise your hand to me again, old woman, and I will raise mine back,” Diana practically growls. There is some undiscernible yelling, and then from behind the door they hear Diana taunt, “Oh by all means, do. It will be so much more satisfactory for them to hear you tell it, than me.” The door flies open, denting the inside wall with a definitive crack. She storms past the group.

Bruce says, “Are you going after her?” Steve shakes his head ‘no.’ “Smart man,” Clint says without a trace of irony in his voice.

Director Fury passes Diana in the corridor, followed by Natasha and Thor. He examines the broken door and dented wall, and shakes his head. “Not again.” Then he looks at Steve. “She’s on her way to destroy the new sparring room, sir. But, uh…” he gestures inside the room, “this is my soon-to-be mother-in-law, Hippolyta, Queen of Themyscira.”

Fury straightens a little, strides in, and takes a small bow. “Your Highness.” Thor and Steve both kneel, and Steve warns his friends under his breath, “If I were you I’d at least bow.” They do. Director Fury presses a buzzer and orders tea, and asks Hippolyta to please make herself comfortable. She looks slightly mollified, and sits. She nods to everyone in the room except for Steve, whom she ignores. She says to Director Fury, “I believe my daughter is also part of your team.” He buzzes again and tells someone to send for Miss Prince.” 

Tea arrives, and a few moments later, so does Diana, looking polished and calm. She takes a seat between Natasha and Steve without looking at her mother. Hippolyta begins, “Sometime last year, your team was attacked by a large, blue demon. It is known by many names, none of which I dare mention.” Diana rolls her eyes but says nothing. Hippolyta gives her daughter a warning glare and continues, “For many centuries, this demon has sought to raze Mt. Olympus to the ground, destroying our plane’s way of life for no reason other than its own enjoyment of death. It even seeks to destroy Hades itself, leaving all souls to float out into oblivion. It attacked your world because my daughter is here. It sought a way to Themyscira, and one of the gates to Olympus.”

She pauses to let the team absorb this information, and then goes on. “I have implored my daughter to return to her home if she truly values the lives of her friends on Terra. If she is not here, the beast will not have any interest in your world. She has unwisely refused. I now implore you to make her see reason, to leave Man’s World and everything in it (she glares at Steve), and come back with me.”

The room is absolutely quiet. Everyone looks from Diana’s stony calm to Hippolyta’s self-assured composure. Steve finally breaks the stalemate. “If Diana leaves, I follow.” Fury turns to Hippolyta and tells her, very frankly, “We can’t afford to lose two Avengers. I’m not going to make them go.” 

Steve hears Diana sigh quietly. Natasha reaches under the table and gives her hand a squeeze. Fury continues, “When that being attacked, my team managed to repel it. I am confident we can do so again if necessary. Now,” he stands up, “I believe Miss Prince, Captain Rogers, and The Queen have some matters that need attending. He waits for everyone else to leave the room, looks at the broken door again. “Can’t wait to see what you did to my new sparring room.” He walks away, toward his own office.

Diana, Steve and Hippolyta sit in silence for several moments. “You’ve left me no choice, you know,” Hippolyta says.

“There is always a choice, Mother.” Diana turns to Steve and explains, “Themyscira isn’t necessarily stationary. Its plane dissects our Earth’s. Mother’s plan is to keep it in constant motion. It will be very difficult for the beast to find, but it will also be very difficult for me to find. In essence, she’s asked me to choose between worlds. The gods have not condoned her forcing the matter, but she has insisted.”

“Are you aware,” Hippolyta asks Steve, “that my daughter is in constant pain here with you?”

Diana narrows her eyes at her mother. Hippolyta waves her hand over Diana’s bracelet. The air ripples for a moment, and Steve sees the bracelet’s thorns pressed deeply into the skin just below Diana’s wrist. That part of her arm is covered in bruises and scars, along with fresh puncture marks that bleed. Steve tries to catch Diana’s eyes, but she stares at her lap. “I will heal when the trial is completed, when we are married,” she says quietly. 

Steve stands up and looms over Hippolyta. “You didn’t have to make it that sharp, or that tight,” he says menacingly. Diana reaches over and takes his hand. “Steve, it’s okay.”

“It is NOT okay!” He turns to her imploringly. “It is never okay for you to hurt. Ever.” He kisses the palm of her hand, scraping his chin on a thorn. She leans her brow to his, wipes away the blood on his chin and says softly, “This pain is tolerable because it is temporary, whereas the pain of an eternity without you is not. It is only two more weeks. I stand by my choice. I will protect this world, with you.” Then she looks up at Hippolyta. “Will you stay, mother? Will you walk me to my betrothed at my wedding?” 

 

Hippolyta looks aggrieved. “No,” she replies. But I leave you with a gift from Apollo himself. It is a likely outcome only, and I have not seen all of it.” She pauses for a few moments to collect herself. “Goodbye, Daughter. Until we meet again. I do not know when that will be.” Then she places her hand a few inches above the crown of Diana’s head. A soft, white light surrounds Diana. Diana smiles as both the light and Hippolyta disappear. Then she throws her arms around Steve and hugs him as tight as she can. “Steve,” she whispers. His face is wet with her tears. “I am so happy.”


	50. Chapter 50

Public relations are the hardest part of the job, as far as Steve is concerned, and Diana is beginning to agree with his assessment. They arrived at the WWII Memorial at 6:30 in the morning just for some time alone to reflect. Veterans’ Day is never easy for either of them. For two hours, they’ve walked hand in hand along the Field of Stars. They read through the registry, finding the names of fellow veterans, most of whom are long dead. They remember those who are not listed, and listen intently as they retell their stories to one another. Sometimes they still surprise each other, discover a new name in common, another connection that links their histories. 

This year, at least, there are some bright points. For starters, he doesn’t have any parade obligations this year. Tony will take the Andrews AFB and the Pentagon this time, Wonder Woman will help him make rounds at Walter Reed, and politicians will be scattered among the other sites and bases in the District to honor both nation’s fallen and those who continue to fight. 

Plus, in two days, they will be married. The news cameras and reporters arrive and begin to set up equipment. “Are you ready for the barrage of personal questions?” He asks. “As much as I can be,” she says. There is a touch of sadness in her voice. Neither of them wants to break the spell of this quiet, sacred moment. She kisses him before he leaves to go become Captain America; cameras go off. As he leaves her, it occurs to him that not long ago, he could not have made the distinction between Steve and Cap that easily.

Captain America leads the Pledge of Allegiance; the Vice President gives a speech, and then come the questions. This is the first time he and Diana have been onstage in front of reporters and cameras together. Along with the expected questions involving details about the wedding, a few catch them off-guard. 

“Miss Prince, what is your response to allegations that your fiancé is having an affair with Wonder Woman?” That question actually makes Steve laugh out loud. Diana calmly replies, “Trust is a foundation of our relationship. I trust Captain Rogers, I trust his colleagues.” She smiles at the reporter, who blushes. She fields most of the other questions, none of which have to do with the gravity of the occasion, with grace and tact, and makes her excuses for the rest of the day, citing last minute wedding preparations. 

The Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital is by far the most difficult part of the day. Both Steve and Diana visit the dying and critically wounded first, then those who have lost limbs and are in rehabilitation, then the most difficult visits, the patients with the invisible, psychic wounds that come with PTSD. The cameras that follow them everywhere are almost intolerable, and neither of them manages to remain patient with reporters. At one point, Wonder Woman snaps at a reporter who asks one too many times about wedding plans. She immediately apologizes, and reemphasizes the seriousness of the occasion for their visit to the hospital. When Steve takes her aside and asks if she needs him to handle the rest of the tour, she tells him ‘no.’ “I am offended that they find our personal life more interesting than the plights of those who defend their right to ask idiotic questions,” she tells him. 

By that evening, they are both emotionally exhausted. Diana joins Steve on the couch and leans on him. “You okay, Mrs.?” he asks. She cranes her head up toward his and kisses his jaw. “Not so fast. I’ve still got 24 hours to decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth and call the whole thing off.” 

“Yeah, but you won’t.”

She closes her eyes and he puts his arm over her shoulders. “Well you seem very sure of yourself.” She reaches over to pick up the TV remote, but he holds it out of her reach. “No football!” she pleads.

“I’ve been looking forward to this game!” He extends his arm further away. “Away with you, woman! Go make me a sandwich.” He can barely keep a straight face.

She feigns shock and he laughs at her. “Now you’re really going to be sorry,” she says. She climbs over him, grabs the remote from his hand and tosses it across the room. He wraps his arms around her waist. “I will not be sorry at all,” he says.


	51. Chapter 51

“This is above and beyond traditional Maid of Honor duties,” Black Widow complains, as she deactivates the makeshift bomb. Wonder Woman drags two men by their jacket collars and unceremoniously drops them onto the sidewalk. “Cavalry’s finally here,” she replies. “At least we can go in a few minutes.” When the NSA agent in charge arrives, she places her lasso over the terrorist leader and tells him, “Answer this man’s questions. I’m in a hurry.” Nevertheless, the interview seems interminable, and neither woman sticks around for debriefing. “Take it up with SHIELD,” Black Widow tells the insistent commander. “We’ve got somewhere to be, and we’re late.”

They find Pepper pacing impatiently at the employee entrance to Meridian House. “Where have you been,” she says, gritting her teeth. “You are an hour late!” Diana starts to apologize, but Natasha interrupts. “No one’s going to start without us.” However, she says this as she drags Diana up the stairs, two at a time. When they get to the suite, she shoves her toward the bathroom and says you’ve got about ten minutes to get clean.” Then she sprints off into her own room to shower and change. 

Thirty minutes later, Natasha returns to find Diana dressed, seated in front of a vanity, totally serene. Pepper tilts Diana’s chin slightly upward with her fingers. “It’s not too late to change your mind.” Diana thinks for a moment. “Definitely the pink.” Pepper puts the darker lip gloss on the counter and applies the lighter shade to Diana’s mouth. 

Natasha knocks on the wall and walks in. “Just me…Oh Diana.” She pulls her friend up to stand and twirls her around. “All you’re missing are wings.” Diana furrows her brow and frowns. Pepper shakes her head and scolds her not to confuse the bride. Diana asks, for the umpteenth time, “You are sure Tony will get Steve where he needs to be, on time?” Pepper is patient. “Like I said, Tony Would. Not. DARE to mess this up. Not after I let him have it after the bachelor party; plus Thor is there to keep him in line... Plus, they’re already here; you’re the one who’s late. Bruce and Clint could have handled a few amateur Metro bombers easily. I’m more worried about whatever Tony’s got planned when he toasts you two at the reception. Now sit down so I can think about your hair.”

There is another knock, and Pepper steps into the next room and opens the door, then closes it behind her. After several minutes, she steps back in. “That was Nick.” Now it’s Natasha’s turn to frown. “Shit. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong; there’s a change in plan though. Someone else will be escorting Diana down the aisle.” She steps out of the room again. There is a moment more of quiet discussion, and Pepper calls back to them, “Nick said, and this is a direct quote, ‘I don’t care who gives that woman away as long as no one gives her back.’” Diana looks up into the mirror. Behind her, walking toward the vanity is Hippolyta. Diana stands, and mother and daughter embrace. “Cassandra warned me this day would come,” Hippolyta begins. “Don’t think for a minute that I’m not furious with you and that…that man. Don’t believe that I trust any of his kind. But you are my daughter, you are the daughter of Themyscira, and We will always have you back.” Diana begins to cry and Pepper is cursing about making sure the cosmetics are waterproof.

“What are you worried about?” Natasha asks Pepper. “All she’s got on is a little lip gloss.”

“Not her, me,” Pepper responds, grabbing a tissue. “Dammit.” She turns to Diana and says, “Do not cry. Don’t even go there; I’m not sure Visine’s gonna work on you and we can’t have you showing up red-eyed and blotchy.” 

Hippolyta begins to twist vanilla and orange blossoms through the braids she’s wound into Diana’s hair. “My daughter does not “blotch.” She continues her work, saying very little. “You are the image of Aphrodite herself,” Hippolyta finally tells her as she surveys the final product, and Diana smiles. Her mother is being literal. 

Later, when Diana appears at the aisle’s threshold, Tony quietly warns him, “I saw that shiver. You’d better not get all emotional. Quit being a girl, soldier-boy.” He gives Steve a slight kick in the shin. “Ow. Quit being an ass, tin man,” Steve mutters under his breath.” Thor sighs. “Do I need to stand between the two of you?” he whispers.

Diana and Steve face one another. When she gazes up at him, Steve is unsure of how he will make it through the ceremony dry-eyed, regardless of his friend’s admonishments. They don’t break eye contact as they say their I-do’s and exchange rings. Looking straight into his eyes, Diana smiles and brings her hand to the dried nectarine seed and states, “Thou art promise fulfilled.” She tugs it, and the necklace drops to the ground and disintegrates into dust. Hippolyta presses Steve’s hand firmly into Diana’s bracelet. “We are of one heart,” Diana says. Hippolyta removes her hand, and the bracelet, too, dissolves to dust and ribbon at their feet. She kisses her daughter’s wrist, and the wounds disappear. Hippolyta walks away without looking back. No one seems to notice, because Captain America has been given a direct order by the chaplain, and he is kissing his wife.


	52. Chapter 52

3 Days Later…

Diana stands facing the waves, her back to the cliff wall. The wind blows her hair back, and Steve resists the urge to jog back down the path to the cottage and grab his sketchbook and pencils. "You're allowed to wear clothes, Mrs. Rogers," he calls out.

She looks back over her shoulder and holds up her left hand. "I'm wearing everything I want to be wearing," she calls back, wiggling her fingers. This place is remote—Tony and Pepper's gift to them is access to some beach property in California that they rarely use. There is no cell service, no car access, and only private airspace. Their gift to the newlyweds is absolute privacy. Nevertheless, Steve walks over and drapes a blanket over Diana's shoulders. She tucks it underneath her and sits. He joins her.

For some time, they quietly watch the tide as it moves out. "You never did tell me what your mother showed you that day at SHIELD," he says eventually. She smiles and digs a small shell out of the sand with her toes. "It's what Apollo's oracle called a likely future, but not a guaranteed one," she eventually replies. But I think my mother knew what the prophesy contained. I'm sure it's why she changed her mind and came to the wedding after all. Lean in; I'll show you." She shifts around to face Steve, and touches her brow to his. She places her fingertips on each of his temples, and tells him to close his eyes.

Steve sits in bed in a room he doesn't recognize. Diana walks toward him, and her face is more radiant than he ever thought possible. She says something to him, and reaches toward him. He looks down. Her hand rests gently on top of his; his hand rests on her belly, which is bare, and very round.

The scene fades and shifts. They are walking along a path in some wooded place. A small child runs off several feet ahead of them, and he hears Diana laugh. There is a small bundle strapped to his chest. When he looks down at it, he sees the top of an infant's head. Diana is holding his hand.

Now they are somewhere else entirely. Steve recognizes the wedding band and engagement ring, but both the man's hands and the woman's are lined, older looking; her's still elegant, though. The fingers intertwine. He feels tired. 

He sees her now, youthful again. She is wearing that pale pink tunic she used to wear. Her eyes are so bright, and she is leading him off somewhere. He doesn't know where. It doesn't matter where. They are together.

Now they sit on the beach, alone, and the waves creep up to them, getting the blanket wet. Diana wipes a tear from his cheek. He kisses her hand, and peels off his shirt, and lays her down. Every moment is full of infinite potential, he remembers her saying to him the first week they met. He understands now. They are alone. This is today. This is now. There is only this moment, and this is their infinite universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I really hope you’ve enjoyed this story. Stay tuned…there may be more coming (I’m not sure I’m done with Cap and WW’s story yet; I'm having such a good time with them), but this seems like a good place for closure. I’m a fan of happily ever after. Please leave reviews!


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